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CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 


CONQUESTS 
OF   INVENTION 

CYRUS  H.  Mccormick  .-.   elias  howe  .-.   thomas 

A.  EDISON     .-.     WILLIAM  MURDOCK     .-.      ROBERT 

FULTON  .-.  GUGLIELMO  MARCONI  ,-.  CHARLES 

GOODYEAR      .r.      GEORGE    WESTINGHOUSE 

ELI  WHITNEY  .'.  GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

JAMES     WATT       .-.       WILBUR     AND 

ORVILLE  WRIGHT  .-.  ALEXANDER 

GRAHAM  BELL 


BY 

MARY  R.  PARKMAN     A 

Author   of   "Fighters    for   Peace,"   "Heroes   of 
To-day,"  "Heroines  of  Service,"  etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1921 


MASS. 


o 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
The  Century  Co. 


Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


PREFACE 

This  volume  is  an  attempt  to  present  in  a 
clear  readable  form  the  story  of  some  epoch- 
making  inventions.  Its  only  claim  to  ^'a  place 
in  the  sun^'  rests  on  the  care  which  has  been 
taken  to  consult  and  sift  all  available  material, 
and  to  select  that  which  is  likely  to  prove  inter- 
esting and  significant  to  the  general  reader. 

The  author  wishes  to  acknowledge  gratefully 
valuable  assistance  given  by  employees  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  and  the  Library  of  Con- 
gress; also  by  Mr.  J.  0.  Martin  of  the  Bell 
Telephone  Company,  and  Miss  Louise  T.  Lati- 
mer and  Miss  Ethel  Bubb  of  the  Public  Library 
of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Especial  thanks 
are  due  to  Miss  Cornelia  Whitney,  teacher  of 
history  in  the  Washington  Normal  School,  for 
help  in  the  preparation  and  revision  of  manu- 
script and  index,  and  for  many  vitally  helpful 
suggestions. 

Washington,  D.  C. 
July,  1921. 

V 


CONTENTS 

PAGI5 

Conquests  of  Invention    . 3 

The      Conquest     of     the 

Reaper Cyrus  Hill  McCor- 

mick    ....       8 

King  Cotton 29 

The   Story  of  the   Spin- 
ning-Jenny  ....  James     Hargreaves     38 

The  Barber  Who  Became 

a  Knight      ....  Richard  ArJcwright     49 

The    Poet    of   Many    In- 
ventions       ....   Edmund  Cartwright    54 

The  Yankee  Who  Crowned 

King  Cotton      .      .      .  Eli  Whitney      .      .     63 

By-Products     ....       ......     80 

Inventions  in  the  Home 85 

The  Inventor  of  the  Sew- 

ing-Machine       .      .      .  Elias  Howe       ,      .     87 

The  Day  of  Rubber 107 

A  Knight-Errant   of  In- 
vention     Charles  Goodyear  ,   110 

Light-Bringers        135 

A     Finder     of     Buried 

Treasure       ....  William  Murdoch   .   139 
The     Franklin     of     Our 

Times Thomas  Alva  Edison  159 

vii 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Transportation  and  Progress      .     .    i.     .     .  Ii89 
The  Conquest  of  Steam    ,  James  WaU      .     .  191 

Pioneers  of  Invention 217 

The     Man     Who      Gave 

America  the  Steamboat  Bohert  Fulton  .      .  222 
Stephenson  and  the  Loco- 
motive      George    Stephenson  242 

The  Inventor  of  the  Air- 
Brake      George  Westing- 
house  ....  275 

The  Steel  Age 293 

The    Story    of    Bessemer 

Steel William  Kelly  .  .  298 

Machines  lot  the  Millions  Henry  Ford      .  .   310 
The  Conquest  of  the  Air  Samuel  Pierpont 

Langley    .      .  .  325 

.  Wilbur  Wright  .   330 

Orville  Wright  .  330 

Old  Signals  and  New    . 347 

The  Father  of  the  Tele- 
graph        Samuel  F.  B.  Morse  350 

The   Story    of   the    Tele- 
phone        Alexander  Graham 

Bell     ....   379 
Wireless      .....  Guglielmo  Marconi  396 


VIU 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTEATIONS 

PAGB 

Crusoe's   Harrow xii 

First  Plow 5 

Team  Work 5 

A  Pioneer's  Harvesting 9 

The  Cradle 15 

MeCormick's   Reaper 22 

A  Primitive  Loom 31 

Bonanza  Farming  in  the  Northwest    ....     32 

Kay's  Fly-Shuttle 44 

Hargreaves'  Spinning- Jenny 47 

Sir  Richard  Arkwright 52 

Power  Loom 60 

Cotton  Gin 77 

Elias  Howe 88 

Howe's  Sewing-Machine       .      .      .      .      .      .      .97 

Charles  Goodyear 112 

Murdock's  Model  of  Locomotive 147 

Murdock's  Gas  Generator 153 

Mr.  Edison  at  his  desk  using  the  t describe     .      .   160 
James  Watt  striving  to  improve  Newcomen's  en- 
gine   209 

Robert  Fulton 224 

ix 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTEATIONS 


PAGE 


The  **  Clermont ' '  and  its  mighty  descendant,  the 

^'Lusitania'' 241 

An  Early  Eailway  Coach 262 

Stephenson's  "Rocket" 269 

Locomotive  John  Bull  and  Train,  1831.    Built  by 

George  Stephenson  and  Son,  for  America    .      .   273 

Westinghouse  "Frog'' 283 

The  Air-Brake 287 

George  Westinghouse 288 

Eastern   Clay   Furnace  with   Goat-skin  Bellows 

used  in  production  of  the  famous  Damascus 

Blades 294 

A  Roman  Blast  Furnace  on  a  hill-top  to  catch 

the  breeze 301 

Raising  the  lump  in  early  days  in  America    .      .  303 

The  Bessemer  Process 305 

The  Open-Hearth  Process 305 

First  American  Automobile,  Duryea's  Model     .  320 

Orville  Wright 337 

Wilbur  Wright 337 

A  Signal  Tower 348 

Samuel  F.  B.  Morse 352 

The  Morse  Telegraph 365 

Morse's  Original  Telegraph  Instrument  now  in 

the  National  Museum  in  Washington,  D.  C.  .369 
The    Crov/d   Listening  to   President    Harding's 

Address 384 

Laying  the  Underground  Cable  to  Washington    .   394 


BEGINNINGS   OF  DISCOVERY  AND 
INVENTION 

WE  have  all  followed  with  breathless  in- 
terest the  adventures  of  Robinson  Cru- 
soe on  his  island.  We  watched  him  as  he  met 
the  difficulties  and  problems  of  life  alone  with 
none  to  help  him  build  a  house  or  to  sell  him 
food  or  clothing.  We  saw  how  he  learned  to  be 
his  own  carpenter,  farmer,  butcher,  baker,  and 
candlestick-maker. 

But  suppose  Robinson  had  not  had  the  help  of 
the  things  saved  from  the  wrecked  ship.  And 
suppose  he  had  never  seen  a  plow,  a  boat,  an 
umbrella,  or  any  of  the  many  other  things  he 
managed  to  make.  He  brought  with  him  from 
the  wreck  guns  and  gunpowder,  hammers,  saws, 
nails,  and  other  tools.  He  brought,  too,  the 
knowledge  of  how  these  things  might  be  used 
to  good  purpose.  Can  you  imagine  the  story  if 
Robinson  Crusoe  had  been  without  this  help? 

xi 


DISCOVERY  AND  INVENTION 

That  is  the  story  of  man  on  the  unexplored 
island  of  the  world.  He  had  to  learn  to  make 
his  own  weapons  and  tools.  He  discovered  that 
a  stone  was  better  than  his  fist  with  which  to 


Crusoe 's   Harrow. 

deal  a  blow,  and  that  a  piece  of  rock  that  gave 
a  place  for  his  hold  was  better  than  a  round 
stone.  Since  such  rocks  were  rare,  a  stout  piece 
of  a  tree  or  an  animal 's  antler  might  be  fastened 
to  the  stone.    So  man  fashioned  the  first  ham- 

xii 


DISCOVERY  AND  INVENTION 

mer.  Centuries  passed  before  lie  discovered 
metals  and  learned  how  to  melt  them  to  his  uses 
in  a  fire. 

Most  fascinating  of  all  the  chapters  of  man's 
progress  is  that  one  which  tells  abont  the  be- 
ginnings of  discovery  and  invention.  When  a 
start  had  been  made  it  was  inevitable  that  he 
should  go  on  step  by  step.  The  vast  forest  is  not 
more  wonderful  than  the  sprouting  acorn.  The 
marvel  of  creation  is  shut  up  in  a  tiny  seed. 

So  it  is  in  the  winning  of  the  first  crude  tools 
and  weapons  that  we  find  the  real  romance  of 
invention.  When  man  conceived  the  idea  of 
making  for  himself  a  harder  fist,  a  longer  arm, 
and  a  sharper  tooth,  than  those  of  his  own  body, 
he  had  learned  the  great  lesson.  The  whole 
world  was  his.  He  had  but  to  knock  and  a  door 
to  new  gains  and  possibilities  flew  open  to  his 
touch.  The  story  of  man's  progress  tells  of 
the  way  that  the  spirit  to  dare  and  do  saw  in 
each  obstacle  not  a  wall  to  stop  the  onward 
march,  but  a  door  to  which  he  must  find  the  key. 

And  what  of  the  finding  of  the  key?  Was  it 
ever  won  through  accident  or  luck?  Was  it  luck 
that  saw  in  the  thorn  that  held  together  two 

xiii 


DISCOVERY  AND  INVENTION 

pieces  of  deerskiii  the  way  to  make  a  nail  and 
a  needle  1  Was  it  mere  accident  that  made  man 
see  in  the  sapling  that  flew  back  as  he  bent  it  the 
promise  of  the  spring-trap  to  capture  his  food 
and  the  bow  to  speed  his  arrows? 

Many  apples  had  fallen  to  the  earth  before 
Newton  saw  his  apple.  It  took  a  Watt  to  bridge 
the  space  between  the  steaming  kettle  and  the 
steam-engine. 

^  ^  God  gives  the  bird  its  food,  but  he  does  not 
throw  it  into  the  nest."  Nature  holds  all  the 
keys  to  the  house  of  life,  but  man  must  find  them 
and  fit  them  to  each  need. 


XIV 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 


^ CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION'^ 

Whether  they  delve  in  the  buried  coal;  or  plow  the  up- 
land soil, 
Or  man  the  seas,  or  measure  the  suns,  hail  to  the  men 

who  toil ! 
It  was  stress  and  strain  in  wood  and  cave,  while  the  primal 

ages  ran, 
That  broadened  the  brow,  and  built  the  brain,  and  made  of 

a  brute  a  man  .  .  . 
Toil   is    the   world's    salvation    though   stern   may   be   its 

ways; 
Far  from  the  lair  it  has  led  us — far  from  the  gloom  of  the 

cave — 
Till  lo,  we  are  lords  of  Nature,  instead  of  her  crouching 

slave ! 
And  slowly  it  brings   us  nearer  to   the  ultimate  soul  of 

things ; 
We  are  weighing  the  atoms,   and  wedding  the  seas,   and 

cleaving  the  air  with  wings  .  .  . 
And  luring  the  subtle  electric  flame  to  set  us  free  from 

the  clod — 
Oh,  toiling  Brothers,  the  earth   around,   we  are  working 

together  with  God! 
With   God,    the    infinite    Toiler,    who    dwells    with    His 

humblest  ones, 
And  tints  the  dawn  and  the  lily  and  flies  with  the  flying 

suns. 

Edna  Dean  Proctor. 


CONQUESTS  OF 
INVENTION 


THE  story  of  the  development  of  civilization 
is  one  with  the  story  of  man's  conquests 
through  invention.  It  is  only  in  the  power  of 
mind  that  man  is  first  among  the  creatures  of 
earth.  Puny  in  strength  compared  with  the 
beasts  of  the  jungle,  he  has  reinforced  his  arm 
with  weapons  sharper  than  the  tiger's  tooth  and 
surer  than  the  lion's  spring.  His  sight  is  weak 
compared  with  that  of  the  hawk  or  the  eagle, 
but  he  has  made  for  himself  magic  glasses  to 
bring  the  stars  near  and  to  reveal  the  marvels 
of  the  world  invisible  to  the  naked  eye.  Less 
fleet  of  foot  than  the  dog  or  the  deer,  he  has  har- 
nessed steam  and  electricity  to  carry  him  over 
land  and  sea  and  to  send  his  thought  and  spoken 
word  across  the  world  with  the  speed  of  light- 
ning. 

3 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

Eveiywhere  he  has  conquered  through  mind, 
— through  applying  reason  and  ingenuity  to  the 
problems  that  nature  presents.  The  world  chal- 
lenged his  powers  at  every  turn,  and  as  he  met 
the  challenge  fairly  and  squarely,  he  rose  step 
by  step  in  the  scale  of  existence,  winning 
through  struggle  a  fuller  and  freer  life. 

First,  living  by  hunting  and  fishing,  he  was 
the  prey  of  famine  when  game  was  scarce  or 
when  rival  tribes  invaded  his  hunting-grounds. 
This  hard  life  of  uncertainty  and  warfare  was 
greatly  improved  when  the  hunter  learned  to 
tame  animals  and  to  live  by  the  milk,  the  meat, 
the  wool,  and  the  skins,  of  his  flocks  and  herds. 
The  change  brought  about  by  the  domestication 
of  sheep  and  cattle  marks  a  distinct  advance  in 
civilization.  It  was  not,  however,  until  with 
agriculture  a  supply  of  food  was  assured  which 
made  a  wandering  life  in  search  of  fresh  fields 
unnecessary,  that  permanent  homes  were  built, 
and  a  new  step  in  civilization  reached.  With 
this  new  stage  came  the  desire  for  beautiful 
possessions,  and  the  handicrafts  were  devel- 
oped. Men  became  masters  of  the  arts  of  weav- 
ing, of  painting,  and  of  wood-carving,  and  in 

4 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

working"  out  their  fancies   in  leather  and  in 
metals. 

Then,  as  cities  grew,  the  demand  for  quicker 


First  Plow 


Team  Work 

and  cheaper  ways  of  making  things  led  to  im- 
provement after  improvement  in  labor-saving 
tools  and  devices,  until  finally  a  new  age — the 
age   of  machinery — ^had   dawned  when   *4ron 

5 


CON^QUESTS  OF  IJSrVE:^TIOI^ 

men ' '  did  in  a  moment  the  tasks  that  had  form- 
erly required  weary  days.  The  scythe  yielded 
place  to  the  harvester  that  cut,  bound  and 
threshed  the  grain.  As  the  sharpened  stick  of 
the  first  farmer  had  been  succeeded  by  the  steel 
plow,  so  this  in  turn  gave  way  to  the  steam  plow 
and  the  tractor  which  made  possible  the  cultiva- 
tion of  thousands  of  acres  with  less  expenditure 
of  man-power  than  had  been  required  by  a  hun- 
dred acres  under  more  primitive  methods.  The 
spinning-wheel  and  hand-loom  were  replaced  by 
cotton  and  woolen  mills;  the  hand-made  gar- 
ments fashioned  by  the  mother  of  the  family 
were  replaced  by  machine-made  clothes  from 
great  factories.  Cities  were  lighted  by  gas  and 
electricity.  Eapid  transportation  could  now 
bring  the  fruits  of  the  tropics  to  those  who 
'^  never  felt  the  blazing  sun  that  brought  them 
forth'';  and  all  peoples  into  closer  relation  one 
with  another.  The  paper  that  we  read  at  our 
breakfast-table  gives  us  news  of  all  the  world. 
These  are  some  of  the  conquests  of  invention. 
But  let  us  remember  that  conquests  do  not  al- 
ways lead  to  a  golden  age  of  prosperity  and 
peace.    Let  us  not  dream  that  the  greatness  of 

6 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

our  country  can  be  measured  by  the  size  of  our 
cities  or  the  power  of  our  big  machines.  Unless 
these  things  help  to  make  people  better  and 
happier,  unless  they  give  fuller  life  and  liberty, 
they  have  not  really  added  to  our  civilization. 
For  the  chief  wealth  of  a  nation  is  to  be  found 
in  the  content  of  its  people ;  and  civilization  de- 
pends upon  the  understanding,  the  industry, 
and  the  generous  spirit  with  which  all  work 
together  shoulder  to  shoulder.  Let  us  not  put 
our  faith  in  the  bigness  of  our  machines  but  in 
the  strength  and  courage  of  the  men  who  labor. 
And,  since  **men  are  square,''  our  faith  will 
not  be  in  vain  if  they  are  given  an  equal  chance 
and  a  square  deal.  The  triumphs  of  invention 
and  the  increase  of  wealth  will  then  mean  not 
new  difficulties  and  dangers  but  a  true  conquest. 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  THE  EEAPER 
Cyeus  Hall  McCormick  (1809-1884) 

IT  is  strange  that  after  all  the  years  that 
have  passed  over  the  world  since  men  be- 
gan to  plant  wheat  they  still  gather  in  the  har- 
vests slowly  and  painfully  by  hand, — much  as 
they  did  in  Bible  times/'  said  a  hard-working 
Virginia  farmer  one  day.  He  was  speaking 
aloud  a  thought  that  had  come  to  him  more  than 
once,  and  for  Robert  McCormick  to  think  meant 
to  act.  He  could  think  even  when  he  was  swing- 
ing a  heavy  cradle  under  a  July  sun,  when  most 
harvesters  were  conscious  of  nothing  but  aching 
backs  and  addled  brains.  And,  in  a  log  workshop 
that  stood  next  the  farmhouse,  he  worked 
away  on  every  rainy  day  as  industriously  as 
ever  he  made  hay  when  the  sun  shone.  Here 
there  was  a  forge,  an  anvil,  and  a  carpenter's 
bench,  and  here  he  put  together  much  of  the 
furniture  that  made  the  home  comfortable,  as 

8 


CYRUS  HALL  MoCORMICK 

well  as  tools  and  machines  for  making  the  farm 
work  easier. 

*^It  will  perhaps  be  a  farmer  who  invents 


A  Pioneer's  Harvesting 

some  better  way  of  getting  in  the  wheat  than 
by  sickle  or  cradle,"  he  said  to  himself  over 
and  over.  **And  what  if  it  shonld  happen  that 
Robert  McCormick  is  that  farmer!''     So  he 

9 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

set  himself  to  the  task  of  making  something  to 
lighten  the  labor  of  the  next  harvest  time. 

^^What  is  that  funny  thing  for?'^  asked  his 
little  son  Cyrus,  who  stood  in  the  door  of  the 
workshop  one  day  looking  with  wide  eyes  at 
the  queer  big  machine  his  father  was  making. 
^'What  are  you  putting  all  those  sickles  on 
sticks  for?'' 

^^It  's  to  cut  wheat,  my  boy,"  said  the  father, 
'4f  I  can  only  make  it  work.  When  our  horses 
pull  it  along  it  should  cut  as  much  grain  as 
several  men  without  getting  a  crick  in  its  back, 
or  having  to  stop  to  mop  its  brow  and  drink 
cider." 

The  boy  liked  to  see  the  lively  twinkle  that 
came  in  his  father's  eyes  when  he  was  happy 
over  an  idea.  It  must  indeed  be  jolly  to  know 
how  to  make  what  you  wanted,  and  nothing 
could  be  better  fun  than  to  discover  new  ways 
of  doing  things.  He,  too,  would  learn  the  cun- 
ning of  tools.  So,  on  the  days  when  his  father 
worked  over  his  reaper,  Cyrus  stayed  near  by, 
watching  and  keeping  up  a  rap-a-tap  of  his 
own  with  hammer  and  nails. 

There  were,  it  seemed,  many  difficulties  in 
10 


OYEUS  HALL  McCORMICK 

the  way  of  getting  a  macliine-reaper  to  do  its 
work  as  it  should.  The  whirling  rods  whose 
task  it  was  to  whip  the  wheat  np  against  the 
line  of  waiting  sickles  found  the  wiry,  bending 
grain  unexpectedly  obstinate.  It  got  so  twisted 
and  tangled  and  bunched  that  the  machine  was 
choked  and  the  sickles  helpless.  If  only  the 
wheat  could  be  depended  on  to  grow  straight 
and  even  till  the  great  moment  of  the  harvest ! 
If  it  were  never  wet  or  bent  to  earth  by  storms ! 
If  the  ground  itself  were  free  from  unpleasant 
bumps  and  hollows! 

^^You  '11  find  that  there  is  nothing  yet  to  take 
the  place  of  honest  toil,  Friend  McCormick," 
said  the  neighboring  farmers,  winking  at  each 
other  slyly  with  a  solemn  relish. 

*^I  don't  look  to  see  the  day  when  work  will 
be  out  of  date,''  replied  Robert  McCormick, 
quietly.  ^^But  I  do  hope  that  the  day  is  not 
far  off  when  we  shall  be  able  to  do  more 
things, — to  get  more  that  is  worth  while  by  the 
sweat  of  the  brow!"  He  did  not  give  up  try- 
ing to  make  a  machine  that  would  reap  his 
grain,  but  he  worked  and  experimented  within 
his  workshop  where  no  one  but  those  of  his  own 

11 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

family  knew  of  his  attempts  and  his  failures. 

Of  aU  the  children,  the  boy  Cyrus  watched 
with  particular  sympathy  and  interest.  He 
knew  that  his  father  was  a  wise  man.  Even 
the  clever  lawyers  and  the  most  learned  min- 
ister of  that  part  of  Virginia  came  a  long  way 
to  talk  with  him  and  ask  his  advice.  Besides, 
he  understood  all  the  marvels  of  tools,  and 
could  fashion  things  deftly  with  his  hands  as 
well  as  picture  them  with  words. 

That  farm  between  the  Blue  Eidge  and  the 
AUeghanies  was  at  once  a  home  and  an  inde- 
pendent community.  The  wool  of  their  own 
sheep  was  spun  into  yam  and  woven  into  cloth 
for  their  winter  clothes  and  blankets.  Shoes 
were  cobbled  there,  too,  and  stockings,  caps, 
and  mufflers  were  knitted  in  odd  moments. 
There  were  days  when  soap  was  boiled,  candles 
molded,  meat  cured,  and  the  various  kindly 
fruits  of  the  earth  dried  and  preserved.  To 
have  been  a  child  in  that  home  was  in  itself  a 
practical  education.  Cyrus's  mother  may 
never  have  heard  that  the  ideal  training  for 
a  child  is  that  where  head,  heart,  and  hand  have 

12 


CYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK 

chance  for  free  and  natural  exercise,  but  she 
acted  as  if  she  had. 

Mrs.  McCormick  believed  in  hard  work,  but 
she  was  never  too  busy  with  her  own  affairs 
to  do  a  good  turn  for  a  friend.  Happening 
along  one  day  when  some  neighbors  were  rush- 
ing about  trying  to  save  some  hay  from  a  storm, 
she  tied  up  her  horse,  seized  a  rake,  and  fell 
upon  the  task  with  all  her  might.  ^*If  we  don^t 
make  haste  the  rain  will  beat  us, ' '  she  said. 

Though  a  woman  who  was  always  ready  to 
turn  her  hand  to  the  work  of  the  moment,  she 
knew,  too,  how  to  enjoy  life.  She  loved  to  walk 
among  her  flowers,  to  see  her  pet  peacocks 
strut  about  the  lawn,  and  to  ride  behind  a  pair 
of  spirited  horses.  There  were  no  dull  days  to 
one  of  her  ambition  and  power  of  enjoyment; 
each  hour  was  full  of  rich  possibilities. 

Not  Robert  McCormick,  but  Cyrus,  the  son 
of  this  wise,  progressive  father  and  energetic, 
ambitious  mother,  was  destined  to  give  the 
world  the  first  successful  harvesting  machine. 

^'How  the  past  lives  in  each  one  of  us  in  all 
that  we  do!"  said  Cyrus  McCormick  thought- 
fully,   years    after    his    reaper    had    brought 

13 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

wealth  to  his  family  and  prosperity  to  many. 
^^As  I  owed  to  my  father  my  turn  for  invent- 
ing, so  I  owed  to  my  mother  the  ambition  and 
determination  to  turn  my  work  to  good  account 
by  making  my  invention  a  business  success/' 
There  was,  too,  something  of  the  stanch, 
never-say-die  courage  of  his  long  line  of  Scotch- 
Irish  forefathers  in  the  strength  of  purpose 
with  which  he  forged  ahead  despite  all  diffi- 
culties. 

But  if  we  must  look  to  his  past  to  explain 
the  power  of  a  man,  we  must  find  in  his  present 
the  circumstances  that  make  his  opportu- 
nity. The  thousands  of  hardy  pioneers  who 
had  marched  westward  taking  up  the  limitless, 
fertile  lands  that  the  Louisina  purchase 
brought  to  the  newly  formed  nation,  found  their 
farming  with  wooden  plows,  sickles,  and 
scythes  a  life-destroying  round  of  drudgery  for 
a  bare  subsistence.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  many 
of  them  dropped  sowing  and  harvesting  to  push 
still  farther  westward  for  adventure  and  for 
gold?  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  hard  struggle 
for  a  poor  living  in  a  rich,  unworked  country 
sharpened  the  wits  of  the  workers  and  led  them 

14 


CYBUS  HALL  McCOEMICK 


to  seek  out  ways  of  saving  labor?  The  indus- 
trial revolution  to  win  freedom  from  the 
tyranny  of  toil  followed  the  political  revolu- 
tion.   Machines  for  spinning  and  weaving  came 

c 


^'4:1^1 


The   Cradle 

into  being.  The  steel  plow  took  the  place  of 
the  hoe,  the  cradle  succeeded  the  sickle,  and 
still  the  fields  of  grain  cried  out  for  a  new  way 
of  gathering  in  the  harvest. 

Eobert  McCormick  was  not  the  first  farmer 
15 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

to  rebel  against  the  liot  toil  of  the  swinging 
scythe  or  cradle.  Many  had  tried  to  devise 
ways  of  making  some  sort  of  reaper.  Cyrus 
McCormick,  who  made  the  machine  that  stood 
the  test  and  won  success,  was  the  forty-seventh 
inventor  of  a  harvester. 

^^I  began  to  work  on  my  reaper  when  I  was 
a  boy  sitting  on  a  slab  bench  in  the  '  Old  Field 
School,'  looking  at  the  daylight  through  the 
window  that  was  just  a  gap  where  an  upper 
log  had  been  cut  away,''  he  said.  ^^I  had  borne 
the  heat  and  burden  of  the  long  summer  days 
in  the  wheat  fields  and  I  knew  what  work  meant. 
As  I  sat  in  my  father's  workshop  watching 
him  struggle  with  his  reaper  I  whittled  a 
smaller  cradle  that  would  not  be  so  back-break- 
ing to  swing  as  the  one  that  had  fallen  to  my 
lot,  and  my  thoughts  flew  faster  than  the  flying 
chips.    The  reaper  must  win  out." 

The  ^^Old  Field  School"  got  its  name  be- 
cause it  was  built  on  one  of  those  stretches  of 
land,  starved  and  overworked  by  the  wasteful 
farming  of  single  crops  that  took  all  and  gave 
nothing  to  the  soil.  The  very  spot  where  he 
was  sent  to  peg  away  at  spelling  and  arithmetic 

16 


GYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK 

was  an  object-lesson.  Farmers  certainly  went 
about  things  in  stupid  ways  or  there  wouldn't 
be  old  fields.  Nature  didn't  work  after  that 
fashion.  How  the  old  earth  renewed  her 
strength  year  after  year! 

Cyrus  MoCormick  decided  to  study  survey- 
ing, showing  his  inventive  turn  here  by  cleverly 
fashioning  the  quadrant  that  he  was  to  use. 
^*I  shall  be  ready  to  mark  out  the  new  fields 
that  your  reaper  will  conquer  one  of  these 
days, ' '  he  said  to  his  father. 

But  after  fifteen  years  of  effort  Robert  Mc- 
Cormick  gave  up  the  struggle.  The  reaper 
promised  well,  and  it  did  cut  the  grain, — 
but  only  to  toss  it  about  in  a  tangled  mass. 

*^Not  much  gained  after  all  the  planning  and 
contriving!"  said  the  father  ruefully. 

*^It  is  good,  and  I  shall  make  it  my  business 
to  prove  it, ' '  vowed  Cyrus. 

He  believed  in  the  reaper  as  he  believed  in 
his  father  and  for  the  sake  of  both  he  mightily 
resolved  to  carry  on  the  work  to  the  day  of 
success.  So  he  began  where  his  father  left  off. 
The  reaper  must  be  something  more  than  a 
powerful  mowing-machine.     It  must  meet  the 

17 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

practical  problem  of  dealing  with  the  grain  as 
it  stood  in  the  field,  divide  it  systematically 
for  the  cutting  and  handle  it  properly  when 
cut. 

Look  now  at  the  model  of  the  first  machine 
that  harvested  real  wheat  in  a  real  field.  Re- 
member that  forty- six  other  inventors  had 
struggled  without  success  for  the  same  end.  All 
of  them  had  failed  to  deliver  the  grain  in  a  way 
to  make  their  inventions  a  practical  saving  of 
time  and  labor.  Cyrus  McCormick's  reaper  had 
at  the  end  of  its  knife  a  curved  arm  or  divider  to 
separate  the  grain  about  to  be  cut  from  the 
rest.  There  was  also  a  row  of  fingers  at  the 
edge  of  the  blade  to  hold  it  firmly  in  the  posi- 
tion to  be  cut.  Then  that  same  knife  had  not 
only  the  forward  push  as  the  horses  drew  the 
machine  over  the  field,  but  it  also  gave  a  side 
sweep  so  that  none  of  the  grain  could  escape 
as  it  fell  on  a  platform  from  which  it  was 
raked  by  a  man  who  followed  the  harvest. 

The  practical  economy  of  this  practical 
farmer's  reaper  was  shown  first  in  the  way  the 
shafts  were  placed  on  the  off-side  so  that  it 
could  be  pulled,  not  pushed,  the  horses  walk- 

18 


CYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK 

ing  over  the  stubble  while  the  cutter  ran  its 
broad  swath  through  the  bordering  grain;  and 
second,  in  the  way  the  big  driving  wheel  that 
turned  the  reaping-blade  also  carried  the 
weight  of  the  machine.  Compared  with  the 
complete  harvesters  that  we  know  to-day,  this 
was  indeed  an  uncouth,  clattering,  loose-jointed 
contrivance, — but  it  worked.  Drawn  by  two 
horses,  it  cut  six  acres  of  oats  in  one  afternoon, 
the  work  of  six  laborers  with  scythes.  It  was 
as  if  Hercules  had  appeared  to  add  to  his  great 
labors  a  still  greater  work. 

Nowhere  was  help  needed  as  it  was  in  the 
harvest  fields,  for  grain  must  be  cut  when  it  is 
ripe.  All  that  cannot  be  reaped  in  a  few  days 
is  spoiled.  A  farmer  might  plant  his  wheat, 
the  fields  might  laugh  with  the  golden  plenty, 
but  if  there  were  not  laborers  enough  at  the 
right  moment  there  could  be  no  bread. 

The  short  reaping-season  also  made  a  special 
difficulty  for  the  inventor.  So  short  a  time 
there  was  for  putting  his  machine  to  the  test, — ■ 
so  long  a  time  to  wait  before  fresh  fields  of 
waving  grain  made  another  trial  possible ! 

There  were,  as  we  have  seen,  difficulties 
19 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

enough  in  the  way  of  making  a  machine  to  cut 
grain;  but  there  was  a  harder  task  than  that 
of  cutting  wet  wheat  in  a  bumpy,  hillocky  field. 
There  was  the  obstinate  prejudice  of  ignorant 
men  who  feared  anything  that  spelled  change. 

Look  at  Cyrus  McCormick  when  he  brought 
his  machine  for  a  public  exhibition  near  Lex- 
ington, in  1832.  There  were  as  many  as  a  hun- 
dred interested  or  curious  spectators, — ^law- 
yers and  politicians  eager  to  see  a  new  thing, 
farmers  with  excited,  doubting  faces,  and  sullen 
laborers  who  feared  that  this  monster  might 
steal  their  daily  bread. 

Young  McCormick 's  strong,  serious  face  was 
pale  but  determined.  He  did  not  wince  even 
when  his  reaper  side-stepped  at  a  particularly 
ugly  hump  in  the  hilly  field. 

^^Here,  here,  young  man!''  cried  the  owner 
of  the  field.  ^  ^  That  's  enough  now !  Stop  your 
horses !  Can 't  you  see  that  you  are  ruining  my 
wheat  r' 

The  red-faced  farm-hands  were  no  longer 
tongue-tied.  ^^Any  one  might  know  it  was  all 
humbug!"  rumbled  one. 

^^We  '11  keep  to  the  good  old  cradle  yet, — ■ 
20 


CYRUS  HALL  MoCORMICK 

eh,  boysT'  jeered  another.  A  group  of  picca- 
ninnies, teeth  agleam  with  mirth,  chuckled  and 
turned  handsprings  of  delight. 

Cyrus  McCormick  looked  about  at  men  and 
boys,  calloused  and  bent  by  toil  that  yielded 
them  less  than  a  nickel  an  hour  through  long 
days  of  twelve  and  fourteen  hours.  *^We  are 
all  slaves  to  the  things  we  know  and  are  used 
to,''  he  said  to  himself.  ^*I  shall  have  to  go 
slow,  but  I  '11  be  sure. ' '  Farmers  and  laborers, 
no  more  than  the  jovial  negro  boys,  dreamed 
that  the  thing  they  feared  and  ridiculed  would 
prove  the  great  bread-giver  that  was  destined 
to  set  them  all  free. 

At  just  the  moment,  however,  when  Cyrus 
McCormick  was  resigning  himself  to  defeat  a 
champion  rode  to  the  rescue. 

*^You  shall  have  the  chance  you  are  after," 
said  a  man  who  had  been  watching  McCormick 
and  his  machine  narrowly.  ^^Just  pull  down 
that  fence  over  there  and  see  what  you  can  do 
in  mi/ field." 

Here  was  new  hope  and  fairly  level  ground. 
The  inventor  drove  gratefully  to  the  test  and 
laid  low  six  acres  of  wheat  before  sundown. 

21 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

He  had  made  good.    The  conquering  reaper  was 

driven  in  trinmpli  into  Lexington,  where  it  was 

put  on  exhibition  in  front  of  the  court-house. 

'^That  machine  is  worth  a  hundred  thousand 


McCormick^s  Eeaper 

dollars!''  declared  a  learned  professor  of  a 
finishing  school  for  young  ladies  with  solemn 
emphasis.  But  young  McCormick  knew  it  would 
prove  nothing  more  than  a  fortnight's  wonder 
unless  he  could  first  make  machines  and  then 

22 


GYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK 

make  farmers  buy  them.  The  inventor  would 
have  to  turn  manufacturer  and  promoter.  And 
if  Cyrus  McCormick  had  not  been  an  inspired 
man  of  business  as  well  as  an  inventor  the 
reaper  would  probably  have  been  as  the  forty- 
six  other  attempts  at  harvesting-machines. 

For  several  years  he  worked  away, — farming 
to  earn  his  bread  and  the  chance  to  go  on 
studying  the  way  his  reaper  behaved  under  all 
conditions.  A  happy  day  came  when  a  new 
sort  of  cutting-edge  handled  wet  grain  almost 
as  well  as  the  dry.  The  future  looked  really 
bright  when,  in  1842,  after  ten  years  of  toil 
without  encouragement  and  without  capital  in 
his  father's  little  log  workshop,  he  succeeded 
in  selling  reapers  to  seven  farmers  who  were 
interested  to  the  extent  of  one  hundred  dollars 
each. 

The  great  day  of  the  reaper  really  dawned, 
however,  when  it  first  saw  the  prairies.  Here 
on  the  vast  fertile  plains  of  the  Middle  West 
the  harvest  so  far  outstripped  the  power  of  the 
harvesters  that  the  cattle  were  allowed  to  feed 
in  the  wheat-fields  that  the  farmers  were  unable 
to  cut.    "When  Cyrus  McCormick  saw  the  Hlinois 

23 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

prairies  at  harvest  time, — saw  men,  women  and 
little  children  toiling  frantically  to  save  as 
much  of  the  wheat  as  possible  during  the  short 
time  of  crop-gathering  before  the  heads  of 
grain  were  broken  down  and  spoiled, — ^he  knew 
that  the  time  had  come  for  him  to  leave  his  log 
workshop. 

**I  must  make  my  reapers,  myself,  to  be  sure 
that  they  are  made  right, ' '  he  said,  * '  and  I  must 
pick  out  the  right  place  for  getting  material 
and  shipping  the  machines  through  the  "West." 

There  were  anxious  hours  spent  in  studying 
the  map  for  the  most  favorable  spot  on  the 
waterway  of  the  Great  Lakes.  The  hour  of  the 
inventor's  destiny  had  indeed  struck  when  he 
selected  Chicago  as  the  site  of  his  future  fac- 
tory. It  certainly  took  faith  and  imagination 
to  see  in  the  rude  little  collection  of  unpainted 
cabins  huddled  together  on  a  dismal  swampy 
tract  without  sewers,  paved  streets,  or  rail- 
roads the  place  of  opportunity  for  a  big  busi- 
ness. But  as  Cyrus  McCormick  had  seen  in 
vision  his  machine  triumphantly  gathering  up 
for  the  use  of  man  harvests  that  would  vanquish 
the  fear  of  famine,  and  give  daily  bread  to 

24 


CYRUS  HALL  McCORMICK 

hungry  thousands  that  should  people  the  vast 
lands  of  the  untouched  West,  he  now  saw  a 
great  city  rise  in  the  place  of  this  dreary,  strug- 
gling little  frontier  settlement. 

The  story  of  the  success  of  McCormick 
through  the  building  up  of  his  business  was 
now  one  with  the  story  of  the  prosperity  of  the 
prairie  states  and  the  growth  of  Chicago  as  a 
leading  railway-  and  shipping-center,  and  mis- 
tress of  the  wheat  markets  of  the  world.  Year 
by  year  as  the  country  grew  and  the  task  of 
reaping  harvests  for  ever-increasing  hordes  of 
hungry  peoples  from  many  lands  who  came 
seeking  bread  in  the  generous  new  states,  the 
power  of  the  reaper  grew.  Other  inventors 
added  to  its  strength.  It  was  a  proud  day  when 
the  self-raking,  self-binding  machine  passed 
over  the  great  wheat-fields,  one  driver  on  the 
high  seat  triumphantly  replacing  a  score  of 
sweating  farm-hands  that  the  old  method  of 
farming  had  employed. 

To-day  every  child  who  has  been  to  the  coun- 
try thinks  the  brisk  self-binders  and  the  great 
community  threshing-machines  as  natural  a 
part  of  the  farm  world  as  the  sheep  and  the 

25 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

cows.  He  sees  a  huge  tractor  fed  by  oil  or 
gasolene  pull  plows,  harrows,  harvesters,  and 
threshers ;  or  sometimes  a  dauntless  little  Ford 
gaily  leading  now  one  and  now  another  sort 
of  planting  or  cultivating  machine  along  the 
furrows.  None  of  these  things  seems  strange 
or  particularly  remarkable.  To  him  the  miracle 
will  be  seen  in  that  first  rude  reaper  put  to- 
gether by  Cyrus  McCormick  in  the  little  log 
workshop  among  the  Virginia  hills. 


26 


KING  COTTON 


East  and  west,  and  north  and  south, 
Under  the  crescent,  or  under  the  cross, 
One  song  you  hear  in  every  mouth, 
Profit  and  loss,  profit  and  loss. 

John  Davidson. 


KING  COTTON 

ONE  of  the  most  despotic  rulers  of  modern 
affairs  is  King  Cotton.  To  look  at  him 
in  Ms  flowering  time  he  seems  hnmble  enough, — 
a  near  cousin  to  the  simple  hollyhock  of  our 
gardens  and  the  pink  mallow  of  marshy  fields. 
But  the  way  his  blossom  changes  its  color  in 
the  second  day  of  blooming,  from  white  or  pale 
yellow  to  haughty  red,  shows  his  imperial 
spirit;  and  when  his  bolls  are  full  of  their 
snowy  harvest,  the  peculiar  twist  of  their  woolly 
fibers  which  makes  them  better  for  spinning 
than  the  fibers  of  any  other  plants,  proves  his 
power. 

Men  are  but  pawns  to  be  moved  about  at  will 
in  the  royal  game  that  King  Cotton  plays.  Now 
his  whim  is  for  water-mills,  and  he  calls  the 
spinners  out  among  the  hills  beside  brisk, 
tumbling  streams.  Now  he  claps  his  hands  and 
behold  a  new  order  of  steam-engines  summons 
the  workers  to  toil  in  cities  where  coal  is  easily 

29 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

brought  and  where  smoke  blackens  the  sky! 
Will  he  not  perhaps  to-day  prove  his  right  to 
rule  by  building  great  central  power-stations 
that  will  make  it  possible  for  his  subjects  to 
live  under  the  blue  heavens  and  breathe  the  air 
of  fields  and  gardens  once  more  1 

The  story  of  the  way  King  Cotton  gradually 
extended  his  sway  in  the  world  of  men  furnishes 
an  interesting  instance  of  the  way  one  step  in 
advance  compels  another.  Nothing  can  exist  of 
itself  alone  untouched  by  what  is  going  on 
about  it,  for  one  life  overlaps  the  lives  of  others 
and  a  pebble  of  change  thrown  into  the  sea  of 
humanity  starts  ripples  and  echoes  that  grow 
in  ever-widening  circles. 

As  people  became  acquainted  with  neighbor- 
ing peoples  they  began  to  know  new  wants. 
The  homespun  garments  from  their  own  sheep 
or  the  flax  in  their  gardens  no  longer  seemed 
enough  for  their  needs.  They  looked  longingly 
at  the  soft  silks  and  gay  calicoes  from  other 
places.  So  trade  began.  Industry  was  no 
longer  content  to  remain  within  doors  and  meet 
the  needs  of  one  household. 

As  the  world  widened  through  the  discovery 
30 


KING  COTTON 

and  settlement  of  new  lands,  the  possibilities 
of  trade  widened.  The  broad  fields  of  the  col- 
onies existed  to  furnish  crops  of  opportunities 


A  Primitive  Loom 


for  skilled  workers  and  clever  traders  at  home. 
*'We  must  make  better  cloth  than  the  New 
England  mothers  can,  so  that  they  will  want  to 

31 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

buy  from  us/'  said  the  weavers  of  Old  Eng- 
land. And  the  new  market  for  their  goods 
made  them  seek  ways  to  save  labor  so  that  it 
might  be  possible  tc  turn  out  more,  as  well  as 
better,  cloth. 

Before  the  days  of  machinery  there  were 
three  chief  steps  in  the  process  of  converting 
by  hand  the  tangled  cotton  fiber,  as  it  was  sent 
from  the  fields,  into  cloth.  First  the  threads 
had  to  be  untangled  or  straightened.  This  was 
done  by  *' carding,"  or  combing  the  fibers  with 
stout,  stiff  brushes  called  cards.  Then  the 
carded  wool,  where  all  the  fibers  lay  parallel, 
was  spun,  that  is  drawn  out  into  loose  yarn  and 
twisted  at  the  same  time  to  make  the  fibers  curl 
and  cling  together,  thus  forming  a  firm  thread. 
The  spinning-wheel  was  turned  by  the  foot,  and 
while  the  fiber  was  drawn  out  by  hand  it  was 
at  the  same  time  twisted  by  a  whirling  spindle, 
called  a  ' '  flyer. ' '  Now  the  thread  was  ready  for 
the  loom  of  the  weaver, — a  hand-loom,  of 
course,  where  the  warp  threads  were  stretched 
vertically  over  a  wooden  frame,  and  the  woof 
threads  were  woven  across  by  means  of  a  large 
wooden  needle  called  a  shuttle.    Behold  now  the 

32 


© 


KING  OOTTON 

finished  cloth,  which  must  be  bleached  and  dyed 
the  desired  color,  or, — if  fignres  were  required 
as  in  calico, — stamped  with  hand  dies  or 
stencils. 

In  all  this  process  the  spinning  stage  was  the 
slowest  and  the  most  tedious.  A  practical 
worker  at  a  loom  could  weave  the  yarn  fur- 
nished by  six  spinners.  Then,  when  a  certain 
clever  weaver,  one  John  Kay,  managed  in  1738 
to  make  this  wor^i  lighter  and  quicker  by  in- 
venting the  *^ fly-shuttle,"  the  cry  for  more 
yarn  made  the  need  for  some  improvement  in 
the  methods  of  spinning  even  more  urgent. 
The  necessity  led  to  the  invention.  Another 
skilled  weaver,  James  Hargreaves,  whose  chief 
trial  it  was  to  secure  a  sufficient  supply  of  spun 
yam  or  *^weft"  for  his  loom,  invented  in  1764 
a  machine  by  which  one  worker  could  spin  eight 
threads  at  once.  Soon  improvements  were  made 
so  that  thirty  threads  could  be  drawn  out  at  a 
time.  ^^The  more  the  merrier,"  sang  the  spin- 
ning-jenny. 

But  it  remained  for  another  man,  Eichard 
Arkwright,  to  devise  a  scheme  of  revolving 
rollers  to  draw  out  strands  firm  enough  to  serve 

33 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

as  warp  threads.  This  in  turn  called  for  an 
invention  that  should  bring  together  the  good 
points  of  the  two  spinning-machines ;  and  Sam- 
uel Crompton  made  what  he  called  humorously 
a  ^^mule,"  because  it  was  a  cross  between  the 
spinning- jenny  of  Hargreaves  and  the  *^ water- 
frame"  of  Arkwright.  It  could  spin  a  thread 
at  once  firm  and  fine, — fine  enough  to  make  pos- 
sible the  manufacture  of  muslin  cloth. 

The  force  of  genius  could  no  farther  go; 
To  make  a  third  he  joined  the  other  two. 

Now  the  spinning,  far  from  lagging  behind, 
served  as  a  spur  to  advance  in  other  directions. 
A  new  device  for  carding  was  introduced,  and 
in  1785,  a  loom  operated  by  water-power  or 
steam  was  invented.  Cloth  was  woven  with  a 
speed  and  finish  undreamed  of  a  few  years  be- 
fore, and  the  cry  was  all  for  more  cotton  for 
the  busy  looms. 

Then  came  Eli  Whitney,  the  man  of  the  hour, 
whose  cotton-gin  could  remove  the  seeds  from 
a  thousand  pounds  of  cotton  in  a  day,  where 
before,  working  with  hand-tools,  a  man  could 
at  best  clean  no  more  than  ^ve  pounds.    A  sup- 

34 


KING  COTTON 

ply  of  raw  material  was  now  assured.  The 
plantations  of  our  Southern  States  were  de- 
voted to  the  service  of  King  Cotton,  whose 
power  seemed  limitless  and  who  scattered  a 
golden  largess  among  his  followers.  *^  Cotton 
is  king!    Long  live  the  king!''  was  the  cry. 

But  let  us  not  forget  that  each  conquest 
brings  its  trials  and  its  problems.  The  spin- 
ning-jenny met  a  real  need,  saved  much  work, 
and  made  clothing  cheaper  and  better.  But  it 
also  introduced  a  new  temptation  and  a  serious 
problem.  It  was  such  a  simple  machine  that 
even  a  child  could  manage  it;  and  manufac- 
turers were  not  slow  to  seize  the  idea  of  larger 
gains  through  smaller  wages.  The  problem 
of  child  labor  in  the  cotton-mills  came  with 
the  '^conquest''  of  this  invention,  and  all  that 
this  problem  has  entailed  in  wrong  and  suffer- 
ing. 


And  we  cannot  run  or  leap; 
If  we  cared  for  any  meadows,  it  were  merely 
To  drop  down  in  them  and  sleep. 

"For  all  day,  the  wheels  are  droning,  turning; 
Their  wind  comes  in  our  faces, 

35 


CONQUESTB  OF  INVENTION 

Till  our  hearts  turn,  our  heads,  with  pulses  burning, 

And  the  walls  turn  in  their  places : 
Turns  the  sky  in  the  high  window,  blank  and  reeling, 

Turns  the  long  light  that  drops  adown  the  wall, 
Turn  the  black  flies  that  crawl  along  the  ceiling; 

All  are  turning,  all  the  day,  and  we  with  all. 
And  all  day  the  iron  wheels  are  droning, 

And  sometimes  we  could  pray, 
^0  ye  wheels,'  (breaking  out  in  a  mad  moaning), 

'Stop!  be  silent  for  to-day!'" 

So  it  was  that  King  Cotton  who  had  seemed 
to  be  ^'a  merry  old  soul'*  showed  that  he  did 
not  always  rule  wisely  and  well,  and  for  the 
good  of  all  his  subjects.  If  some  were  growing 
rich  and  happy  under  his  sway,  many  others 
were  poor  and  miserable. 

But  perhaps  the  worst  thing  that  a  wrong- 
headed  monarch  can  do  to  helpless  people  is  to 
lead  them  into  war.  It  is  certain  that  King 
Cotton  must  answer  to  this  charge.  For  he 
offered  such  rich  rewards  through  slave  labor 
in  the  cotton-fields  that  the  plantation-owners 
could  only  think  of  any  change  that  threatened 
these  gains  as  a  danger  to  be  fought  to  the  last 
ditch.  This  led  to  the  Civil  War, — a  terrible 
five  years  when  brother  fought  against  brother 

36 


KING  COTTON 

to  further  the  power  and  to  extend  the  rale  of 
King  Cotton. 

The  result  of  that  conflict  proved  that  cotton 
is  not  king.  It  was  shown  that  man  could  rise 
to  an  intelligent  control  of  the  outer  conditions 
of  his  life.  Though  at  first  it  seemed  as  if  the 
war  and  the  freeing  of  the  plantation  slaves  had 
destroyed  the  cotton  industry,  yet  after  thirteen 
years  of  peace  the  cotton-planters  with  wage- 
earning  negroes  had  won  once  more  the  leader- 
ship in  the  cotton  markets  of  the  world.  Now 
three  fourths  of  the  cotton  that  the  world  uses 
is  grown  in  our  Southern  States.  A  free  South 
has  won  through  the  raising  of  cotton,  varied 
with  crops  of  corn,  rice,  potatoes,  and  other 
food-stuffs,  a  prosperity  far  greater  than  that 
of  the  South  which  bowed  down  before  cotton 
as  king. 


37 


THE  STOEY  OF  THE  SPINNING-JENNY 

James  Haegeeaves  (!-1778) 

WHAT  a  story  that  spinning-wlieel  in  the 
corner  could  tell  if  we  bnt  knew  the  way 
to  set  it  spinning  the  thread  of  the  adventnres 
that  it  saw  and  shared!  It  would  tell  of  days 
of  toil  and  busy  evenings  when  all  the  life  of 
the  home  was  set  to  the  tnne  of  its  unceasing 
whirr.  It  wonld  tell  of  weary  workers  who 
spun  and  wove  until  backs  were  bent  and  eyes 
were  dimmed.  For,  in  the  homespun  days  of 
old,  the  hours  of  labor  were  long  and  the  time 
of  rest  scant  for  those  who  had  the  task  of 
spinning  cotton,  wool,  or  linen  fiber  into  thread 
and  then  weaving  it  into  the  stuff  from  which 
the  clothes  of  the  world  were  made. 

We  think  sometimes  that  spinning-songs 
were  all  happy,  light-hearted  tunes  sung  by 
some  fair  Priscilla  or  gentle  Patience  as  she 

38 


JAMES  HAEGREAVES 

drew  out  the  yarn  for  the  cloth  that  was  to 
provide  her  own  household  with  soft  linen  and 
wool  for  winter  wear.  That  is  truly  a  pleasant 
picture,  but  we  must  turn  from  that  glimpse 
of  life  in  the  more  favored  homes  to  another 
scene  in  a  weaver  ^s  cottage,  where  all  of  the 
family  were  working  together  to  make  cloth. 
At  one  side  Sister  Sue  and  Betty  were  helping 
Mother  spin  yarn,  while  over  in  the  corner 
Jack  and  small  Jenny  were  busily  ^* combing^' 
the  tangled  bunches  of  wool  and  cotton  so  that 
the  threads  all  lay  in  one  direction,  making  a 
soft,  fluffy  roll  ready  for  the  spinning. 

^^  Are  n't  you  glad  that  Father  made  us  this 
fine  comber  r'  said  Jack.  *^The  heavy  old 
brushes  that  all  the  other  folks  use  would  have 
been  too  much  for  you,  Jenny.  It  's  lucky  for 
us  that  Father  is  a  carpenter  as  well  as  a 
weaver.  I  tell  you,  he  can  make  things !  And 
he  's  the  fastest  weaver  anywhere  about." 

James  Hargreaves  was  indeed  a  master 
weaver.  Put  to  work  when  a  tiny  lad,  he  had 
learned  nothing  from  books  but  much  from  the 
school  of  life  as  he  worked  at  his  carpenter's 
bench  or,  through  the  long  winter  evenings,  at 

39 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

his  loom.  And  Necessity,  that  stern  mother  of 
invention,  had  led  him  to  fashion  more  than 
one  contrivance  to  save  labor.  The  machine 
that  carded  or  straightened  out  the  threads  of 
raw  fiber  for  spinning  was  his  latest  triumph. 
How  the  children  clapped  their  hands  to  see 
it  do  quickly  and  easily  the  work  that  would 
have  taken  them  several  hours  of  toil  with  the 
clumsy  brushes. 

** Pretty,  pretty  pet!''  cooed  little  Jenny, 
drawing  the  *'slubbin"  or  ^*rove''  of  fleecy 
cotton  from  the  carder  and  stroking  it  gently 
as  she  hugged  it  close  in  her  arms.  In  fancy 
she  held  for  a  moment  the  doll  of  her  dreams. 

The  mother  looked  up  from  her  turning  wheel 
and  smiled  at  her  smallest  helper.  ^'Well  done, 
precious  poppet!"  she  said.  *^ There  is  a  beau- 
tiful rove  ready  for  mother  to  spin.  If  only 
there  were  more  of  us  to  turn  wheels  now,  so 
that  your  poor  father  would  not  have  to  go 
about  buying  yarn  from  the  village  spinsters 
for  his  weaving ! ' ' 

She  sighed  and  set  her  wheel  turning  even 
faster  as  she  thought  of  the  busy  loom  that 
was  always  hungry.    Work  as  they  did  early 

40 


JAMES  HAEGEEAVES 

and  late,  they  could  not  supply  all  the  yarn 
needed  by  the  flying  shuttle.  How  dear  were 
the  bread  and  meat  for  hungry  boys  and  girls, 
and  how  cheap  was  all  their  toil! 

^* Never  mind,  Mother  dear,''  and  small  Jen- 
ny drew  close  to  look  up  in  the  kind,  troubled 
face.  *  ^  Soon  I  shall  be  a  big  spinster,  too,  and 
I  '11  spin  so  fast  that  you  will  never  have  to  go 
out  to  get  weft  away  from  home." 

**My  Jenny  is  a  good  child,"  said  Mistress 
Hargreaves.  ^*  What  should  we  ever  do  without 
our  busy  helpers?"  she  added,  nodding  at  the 
other  children.  *^Who  is  there!"  she  called, 
hearing  a  hand  fumbling  at  the  latch. 

The  door  of  the  cottage  opened  slowly  and 
in  staggered  a  figure  bent  from  toil  over  the 
loom  and  weary  now  from  the  long  walk  in 
search  of  the  heavy  bundles  of  yam  which  he 
carried  strapped  on  his  shoulders. 

*^I  did  not  look  for  you  back  so  soon,  James. 
Better  luck  this  time?"  called  his  wife  cheerily. 
In  her  haste  to  help  him  put  down  his  load  of 
yarn  the  spinning-wheel  was  thrown  over  and 
Jenny  laughed  to  see  that  the  spindle  which 

41 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

was  standing  straight  up  now  had  not  ceased 
to  turn  and  whirr  merrily. 

**Look,  look!"  she  cried,  clapping  her  little 
hands. 

**Why,  yes!  Look,  Mother!"  said  James 
Hargr eaves,  wonderingly.  He  knelt  on  the 
floor  beside  the  child.  **It  may  be,"  he  added 
to  himself,  ^'it  may  be  that  we  can  make  a  new 
spinner  that  shall  do  the  trick  of  turning  a 
number  of  spindles  at  once.  ^^Do  you  see  what 
your  topsy-turvy  wheel  may  teach  us,  Janie?" 
he  said  looking  up  at  his  wife.  **I  think  I  see  a 
way  to  make  a  machine  to  spin  for  me  faster 
than  ten  spinsters.  Then  you  and  the  children 
will  not  have  to  work  all  the  time  to  keep  my 
loom  in  yam.  Little  Jenny  can  play  a  bit,  as  is 
her  right." 

^*I  want  to  help  you,  Father;  Jenny's  a  big 
girl  now,"  said  the  child,  looking  up  at  him 
through  her  tangle  of  curls. 

^^  Father  will  make  him  a  Jenny  that  shall 
spin  faster  than  even  Mother  can, — than  she 
could  if  she  turned  six  wheels!"  exulted  the 
weaver.    In  a  flash  of  inspiration  he  had  pio- 

42 


JAMES  HAEGEEAVES 

tured  a  single  wheel  turning  a  row  of  whirling 
spindles. 

For  some  days  the  loom  in  James  Har- 
greave's  cottage  was  idle  while  the  inventor 
fashioned  the  machine  which  he  had  planned  in 
that  moment  when  he  had  seemed  to  see  the 
things  of  his  world  not  only  as  they  were  but 
as  they  might  be  through  the  help  of  his  won- 
derful idea.  It  was  indeed  a  proud  day  when 
his  dream  became  a  working  reality,  and  his 
new  machine  was  spinning  yarn  to  the  tune  of 
eight  whirling  spindles.  First  playfully,  and 
then  quite  in  the  way  of  matter-of-fact  habit, 
they  called  this  latest  helper  *^  Jenny.'' 

*^  After  a  while  we  can  make  our  spinning- 
jenny  do  still  more  for  us,''  declared  the  weaver 
hopefully.  **But  we  must  take  care  to  guard 
our  secret  and  let  no  one  guess  about  our  magic 
yarn.  You  remember  what  they  did  to  John 
Kay!" 

''John  Kay?  Who  is  he?"  asked  Mistress 
Hargr eaves  wonder ingly. 

''Not  remember  about  John  Kay!  And  you 
a  weaver's  wife!"  exclaimed  James  Har- 
greaves.    "He  was  the  man  who  made  the  fly- 

43 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

shuttle  that  saves  us  so  mucli  time  and  labor. 
Don^t  you  mind  how  hard  it  was  to  throw  the 
shuttle  before  we  had  the  spring  hammers  and 
cords  at  each  end  of  the  loom  to  send  it  back 


II     .niiiiiiiiiiiMUM/.j)iiiTrM;...|iu.. "rjf^i^ 


S^ 


Kay's  Fly-Shuttle 

and  forth?  The  making  of  cloth  was  indeed 
slow  work  then.  It  is  easy  to  forget  how  hard 
things  used  to  be  when  we  complain  about  the 
way  we  find  them  now/'  he  added  thoughtfully. 
''But  what  of  John  Kay  I  Surely  he  was 
rewarded  for  his  workT'  interrupted  the  wife. 

44 


JAMES  HAEGREAVES 

**Say  you  so,  my  JanieT'  returned  tlie 
weaver  darkly.  *  ^  Do  you  not  know  that  people 
always  fear  a  new  thing?  Any  change  seems 
a  danger.  The  weavers  were  sure  the  fly-shut- 
tle would  rob  them  of  work  and  bread.  And 
even  the  rich  who  should  have  known  better 
said  that  this  invention  would  fill  the  poor- 
houses  with  paupers  for  them  to  feed.  Have 
you  not  heard  of  how  the  riots  forced  John 
Kay  to  shut  up  his  mill  at  Leeds  and  how  a  mob 
broke  into  his  house  and  destroyed  everything 
in  itr' 

^^And  what  of  John  Kay  himself  f  breathed 
the  wife  anxiously. 

*^It  is  said  that  his  friends  managed  to  smug- 
gle him  away  in  a  wool  sheet/'  replied  Har- 
greaves,  *  ^  and  that  he  is  now  living  in  exile  in 
France,  poor  and  friendless,  while  rich  clothiers 
who  have  stolen  his  patents  are  growing  richer 
and  all  weavers  have  reason  to  bless  his  name." 

In  fact,  in  that  very  year,  1764,  when  Har- 
greaves  was  working  out  the  first  model  of  his 
spinner,  John  Kay,  whose  invention  had 
brought  wealth  to  many  and  given  England  a 
leading  place  in  the  markets  of  the  world  for 

45 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

the  manufacture  of  cotton  and  woolen  goods, 
died  poor  and  neglected  in  a  foreign  land. 

**But  why  can't  people  see  that  if  you  save 
them  work  they  can  do  more  ?  And  that  things 
will  be  so  much  cheaper  that  people  can  buy 
more  1 ' '  protested  Mistress  Hargreaves.  * '  They 
must  see  that  your  spinner  which  saves  so 
much  work  is  a  good  thing!" 

*'Most  people  cannot  see  past  to-morrow's 
dinner,"  replied  James  Hargreaves.  *^If  they 
think  that  is  in  danger,  it  is  useless  to  try  to 
show  them  that  things  may  be  better  after  a 
while.  No,  I  shall  keep  my  spinning- jenny,  as 
I  keep  my  Janie  and  my  wee  Jenny  in  my  own 
home.  We  will  work  quietly  together  here  and 
earn  the  right  to  rest  and  comfort  in  our  old 
age." 

So  the  days  passed.  The  weaver's  loom  was 
never  idle  now,  nor  was  he  ever  seen  away 
from  home  bargaining  with  the  spinsters  of  the 
village  for  weft  to  satisfy  his  flying  shuttle. 
Then  it  began  to  be  whispered  about  that  this 
independent  weaver  had  something  concealed 
in  his  cottage  which  gave  him  an  advantage 

46 


JAMES  HAEGREAVES 

over  all  Ms  neighbors,  and  might  even  threaten 
to  rob  them  of  their  bread. 

^^His  little  Jenny  can  turn  its  wheel  and  do 
more  work  in  a  day  than  a  grown  woman  can 


Hargreaves '  Spinning- Jenny 

in  a  week,"  it  was  said.  The  rumor  passed 
quickly  from  mouth  to  mouth ;  the  pale,  heavy- 
eyed  weavers  were  beside  themselves  with 
wrath  and  jealous  fear.  An  angry  mob  broke 
into  Hargreaves 's  house  and  compelled  him  to 

47 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

flee  for  his  life.    The  first  spinning- jenny  was 
hacked  to  pieces  and  trampled  underfoot. 

^^My  poor  spinning-jenny!"  mourned  the  in- 
ventor, sadly.  *  *  She  was  a  thrifty,  good  wench, 
true  to  her  name!  But  we  sha'n^t  give  up  nor 
shall  she,"  he  added  hopefully. 

It  was  not  in  the  nature  of  James  Hargreaves 
to  despair.  Driven  from  his  home  near  Black- 
burn, he  went  to  Nottingham,  where  he  found 
a  partner  and  set  up  the  first  spinning-mill  in 
England.  He  could  not,  however,  spin  the 
thread  of  a  happier  fate  for  himself.  His  pa- 
tents were  stolen,  and  though  at  the  time  of 
his  death  there  were  twenty  thousand  *  ^jen- 
nies" in  England,  the  Widow  Hargreaves  re- 
ceived only  four  hundred  pounds  for  the  in- 
ventor's share  in  the  Nottingham  factory. 

You  cannot  kill  an  idea,  however.  **  Truth 
crushed  to  earth  will  rise  again,"  and  though 
many  inventors  seem  to  have  been  robbed  of 
the  fruits  of  their  labor,  the  inventions  which 
they  gave  to  the  world  triumphed.  The  spirit 
of  the  worker  lives  then  in  his  work,  and  the 
inventor  conquers  through  the  conquest  of  his 
invention. 

48 


THE  BAEBER  WHO  BECAME  A  KNIGHT 

Richard  Arkwright  (1732-1792) 

THE  story  of  the  barber  Arkwright  is  a 
merry  tale  of  a  man  who  seemed  from  the 
first  destined  to  succeed.  He  took  up  Har- 
greaves's  work  but  not  his  hard  lot.  For  the 
Fates  had  spun  for  this  clever  lad  a  bright 
thread  of  golden  success. 

The  youngest  of  a  family  of  thirteen  chil- 
dren, Richard  Arkwright  was  early  put  to  the 
trade  of  a  barber.  *^I  shall  prove  all  my  life 
that  thirteen  can  be  a  lucky  number;  I  '11  be 
the  best  barber  in  London/'  he  vowed. 

He  went  at  his  work  with  a  will.  ^ '  The  fair- 
est shave  in  merry  England  for  a  penny,"  was 
his  watchword  in  a  day  when  men  of  the  razor 
were  charging  twopence.  Over  the  entrance  to 
his  basement  shop  he  hung  his  sign  bearing  the 
challenge  of  his  motto. 

But  not  for  long  was  he  content  to  live  by 
49 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

cutting  beards  and  giving  shaves.  '*My  real 
chance  lies  in  the  way  of  wigs,"  said  Master 
Dick.  And  in  the  day  when  all  the  rich  and 
great  coveted  finer  locks  than  nature  had  given 
them,  he  managed  to  furnish  the  fashionable 
wig-makers  with  the  best  hair  and  a  magic  dye 
that  was  in  itself  a  fortune. 

See  how  one  thing  leads  to  another.  In  his 
travels  about  the  country  in  search  of  fair 
locks  and  curling  ringlets,  this  alert  and  enter- 
prising barber  became  interested  in  the  new 
spinning- jenny  and  its  work. 

** There  is  just  one  trouble,"  he  heard  a 
weaver  declare.  *^The  jenny's  threads  are  not 
strong  enough  for  the  warp ;  so  the  foundation 
of  our  cotton  goods  must  be  made  of  linen." 

**That  seems  a  poor  sort  of  contriving,"  said 
Arkwright.  *'Now  I  have  never  been  one  to 
content  myself  with  half-way  measures.  Per- 
haps you  weavers  will  have  to  call  in  a  barber 
to  finish  you  off,  give  you  a  good  clean  shave, ' ' 
he  added  with  his  merry  laugh. 

But  he  set  himself  to  the  task  seriously,  so 
seriously,  indeed,  that  his  wife,  who  was  some- 
thing of  a  shrew,  declared,  *^You  11  starve  your 

50 


EICHAED  AEKWRIGHT 

poor  family,  scheming  when  you  should  be  shav- 
ing!''  And  she  proved  how  much  in  earnest 
she  was  by  breaking  into  bits  the  queer  con- 
trivance he  had  managed  to  put  together.  But 
the  spirit  of  the  inventor  was  not  so  easily 
broken. 

*^The  time  has  come  for  me  to  work  under 
another  roof, ' '  he  said  with  calm  determination, 
*^for  my  attempt  shall  go  on  in  spite  of  all  the 
shrews  in  England!" 

We  are  not  told  if  this  shrew  was  tamed. 
We  only  know  that  she  failed  to  put  a  check 
on  the  inventive  zeal  of  Eichard  Arkwright. 
He  went  on  with  his  experiments,  more  resolved 
than  ever  to  solve  his  puzzle.  Engaging  the 
help  of  a  clever  clock-maker,  he  developed  a 
machine  called  the  *^ water-frame,''  which, 
driven  by  water-power,  carried  the  carded  cot- 
ton through  pairs  of  turning  rollers,  each  suc- 
ceeding pair  revolving  more  rapidly  than  those 
before,  until  at  last  it  drew  out  a  yarn  strong 
and  firm  enough  to  be  used  for  the  lengthwise 
or  warp  threads.  English  cotton  cloth  could 
now  hold  its  own ;  and  to  this  day  we  find  in  the 
large  cotton-mills  both  in  England  and  America 

51 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

the  clever  barber's  method  of  drawing  out 
strong  threads  for  the  warp  while  the  principle 
of  the  spinning- jenny  is  employed  in  the  pro- 
duction of  the  weft  or  the  woof  threads. 

Now  the  one-time  barber  had  a  chance  to 
prove  himself  not  only  an  inventor  but  also  an 
excellent  business-man.  He  did  not  leave  it 
to  others  to  reap  the  benefits  of  his  invention. 
Groing  to  Nottingham,  he  became  the  ruling 
partner  in  a  manufacturing  firm  which  before 
long  produced  the  first  British  calico,  and  a 
fortune  for  the  enterprising  Arkwright. 

^*  Water-power  wisely  employed  and  a  genu- 
ine business  talent  together  made  the  barber's 
fortune,''  it  was  said.  It  was,  however,  some- 
thing more  than  these  that  went  into  the  build- 
ing of  this  successful  man's  prosperity,  some- 
thing that  might  be  called  four-square  man- 
power. When  he  harnessed  his  will  to  a  task  it 
seemed  as  if  he  could  move  mountains. 

One  thing  that  perhaps  more  than  another 
indicates  the  measure  of  the  man  was  the  way 
in  which  he  set  himself  to  the  study  of  grammar 
when  nearing  the  age  of  sixty.  **When  I  was 
but  a  small  lad  I  was  put  to  work.    If  then  I 

52 


Sir  Richard  Arkwright 


RICHAED  ARKWEIG^HT 

was  not  too  young  to  earn  my  living,  I  am  not 
now  too  old  to  learn  to  write  and  spell  cor- 
rectly.'' So  the  great  *^ captain  of  industry'' 
whose  business  cares  occupied  all  his  working- 
hours  took  time  from  his  small  allowance  for 
rest  to  make  up  for  the  shortcomings  of  his 
early  schooling. 

To  a  friend  who  wanted  to  know  why  one  of 
the  richest  men  of  the  realm  should  vex  him- 
self with  such  tasks,  he  said,  '^That  man  is 
indeed  poor  who  does  not  know  or  care  where 
he  lacks." 

The  barber,  turned  inventor  and  manufac- 
turer, amassed  a  fortune  of  half  a  million 
pounds — ^vast  wealth  for  those  times — and  was 
awarded  the  distinction  of  knighthood  for  his 
services  to  his  country. 


53 


THE  POET  OF  MANY  INVENTIONS 
Edmund  Caut weight  (1743-1823) 

THE  parson  is  a  right  good  sort  and  a 
clever  'nn  that  books  could  not  addle  nor 
the  fine  ways  of  rich  folks  spoil/' 

A  bluff  old  British  farmer,  red-faced  and 
shrewd,  had  stopped  his  plow  at  the  end  of  a 
furrow  to  have  a  word  with  a  neighbor  across 
a  hawthorn  hedge.  Both  men  were  looking 
after  the  gracious  figure  of  a  man  who  had  not 
been  too  much  occupied  with  his  thoughts  to 
rein  in  his  horse  for  a  friendly  greeting  as  he 
passed  by. 

**He  always  rides  just  so,  at  a  walk,  though 
any  one  can  see  he  is  at  home  in  the  saddle," 
replied  the  other  approvingly. 

**  Mayhap  he  thinks  of  his  Sunday  preaching 
as  he  goes  about,''  said  the  farmer. 

**He  thinks  o'  more  things  than  Sundays," 
54 


EDMUND  CAETWRIGHT 

declared  the  other.  ^*He  thinks  what  he  can 
do  to  help  folks  on  Mondays  and  Saturdays 
as  well.  Have  you  heard  what  he  did  when 
Carter ^s  lad  was  so  bad  off  with  the  fever? 
He  said  to  the  mother,  ^Have  you  some  yeast 
handy?  I  know  a  case  where  a  glass  of  it  drove 
away  a  sickness  like  this.  Will  you  let  me  try 
what  it  can  do?'  And  bless  you!  of  course  they 
let  him  have  his  way.  Had  he  not  told  them 
about  a  cure  for  a  sick  cow  and  how  to  save 
their  wheat  crop  ?  The  lad  began  to  get  better 
that  same  day.'' 

^^And  he  's  as  handy  with  tools  as  if  he  had 
not  been  born  to  books, ' '  returned  the  farmer. 
*  *  Many  's  the  time  he  '11  show  you  how  to  patch 
up  and  contrive  things  to  make  work  a  bit 
easier.  They  say  he  's  a  wonderful  friend  when 
a  loom  needs  a  bit  of  tinkering." 

The  gentle  parson  was  at  that  moment  think- 
ing of  the  hard  work  that  fell  to  the  lot  of  the 
cottagers  in  his  parish.  **Poor  people!  All 
of  them  old  before  they  have  had  a  chance  to  be 
young!"  he  said  to  himself.  *^No  time  to  walk 
out  under  the  sky,  to  stretch  their  hearts  as 

55 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

well  as  their  legs  and  breathe  freely  the  air  of 
heaven. ' ' 

He  sighed  heavily,  but  soon  shook  himself 
free  of  his  troubled  thoughts  and  began  to  hum 
a  happy  air.  A  lark  rose  from  the  field,  filling 
the  sunshine  with  song.  The  parson's  heart 
sang  and  his  horse's  hoofs  seemed  to  beat  out 
a  tune.  He  was  putting  the  gladness  of  the 
day  into  words — for  since  the  time  he  first 
tasted  the  joys  of  learning  and  poetry  at  Ox- 
ford, Edmund  Cartwright  had  loved  to  set  his 
thoughts  to  music — ^when  he  was  roused  by  a 
merry  greeting. 

^'How  many  miles  away  were  you  this  time, 
friend  Poet?"  called  the  squire,  from  his  gar- 
den. *^Not  to  look  at  a  neighbor  when  he  hails 
you  twice !  And  here  are  some  gentlemen  from 
Manchester  you  will  want  to  talk  with.  They 
can  tell  you  all  about  the  new  spinning-machine 
you  were  so  curious  to  hear  of. ' ' 

^^Does  the  poet  take  an  interest  in  me- 
chanics I ' '  asked  one  of  the  visitors. 

^ '  Behold  a  man  who  can  use  his  hands  as  well 
as  his  head!"  cried  the  squire,  heartily. 

*^I  am  indeed  interested  in  devices  for  saving 
56 


EDMUND  CARTWEIGHT 

labor,''  said  Cartwright,  ''and  anything  that 
promises  to  make  lighter  the  load  of  the 
weavers  must  be  of  particular  concern  to  us; 
for,  surely,  of  all  people,  their  toil  seems  the 
hardest. ' ' 

' '  They  will  have  to  work  harder  than  ever  to 
keep  up  with  the  increased  output  of  the  spin- 
ning-mills, ' '  was  the  reply.  ' '  The  day  is  passed 
when  the  loom  can  keep  ahead  of  the  supply  of 
spun  yarn." 

''But  cannot  some  machine  be  devised  for 
weaving,  as  Arkwright's  has  met  the  problem 
of  spinning!''  asked  the  parson  eagerly. 

"No,  that  is  a  different  matter,"  the  Man- 
chester gentleman  assured  him.  "It  is  clearly 
impossible.  You  cannot  make  a  mechanical  de- 
vice to  take  the  place  of  the  deft  hands  of  the 
weaver. ' ' 

But  Edmund  Cartwright  was  not  convinced. 
"I  have  seen  an  automaton  play  a  game  of 
chess,"  he  contended.  "If  it  is  possible  for 
a  machine  to  make  the  complicated  moves  in 
that  game,  it  is  certainly  reasonable  to  enter- 
tain the  idea  that  a  machine  can  be  framed  to 

57 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

make  and  repeat  successively  the  three  move- 
ments involved  in  weaving. ' ' 

During  the  following  weeks  the  poet-parson 
was  observed  to  be  even  more  absent-minded 
than  was  his  wont ;  and  the  face  he  turned  upon 
his  Sunday  congregation  bore  the  marks  of 
eager  thought.  *^  Parson  is  surely  working  up 
something  new,"  was  the  remark. 

Indeed,  so  fast  did  his  ideas  take  shape  that 
his  hands  lagged  behind.  He  called  in  a  car- 
penter and  smith  to  work  for  him  and  a  weaver 
to  lay  warp  threads  on  the  machine  they  fash- 
ioned. Then  threads  of  heavy  material,  like 
that  used  in  making  sails,  were  indeed  woven 
into  cloth  by  the  new  device. 

In  a  letter  to  a  friend  Edmund  Cartwright 
wrote : 

As  I  had  never  before  turned  my  thoughts  to  the  details 
of  mechanism  either  in  theory  or  practice,  nor  had  seen  a 
loom  at  work,  nor  knew  anything  of  its  construction,  you 
will  readily  suppose  that  my  first  loom  must  have  been  a 
rude  sort  of  machinery.  The  warp  was  laid  perpendicularly, 
the  reed  fell  with  a  force  of  at  least  half  a  hundred  weight, 
and  the  springs  which  threw  the  shuttle  were  strong  enough 
to  have  thrown  a  Congreve  rocket.  In  short,  it  required  the 
strength  of  two  powerful  men  to  work  the  machine,  at  a 
slow  rate,  and  for  only  a  short  time.     Conceiving  in  my 

58 


EDMUND  CAETWEIGHT 

simplicity  that  I  had  accomplished  all  that  was  required, 
I  then  secured  what  I  thought  a  most  valuable  property  by 
a  patent,  4th  of  April,  1785.  This  being  done,  I  then 
condescended  to  see  how  other  people  wove;  and  you  will 
guess  my  astonishment  when  I  compared  their  easy  modes 
of  operation  with  mine.  Availing  myself,  however,  of  what 
I  then  saw,  I  made  a  loom  in  its  general  principles  nearly 
as  they  are  now  made.  But  it  was  not  till  the  year  1787, 
that  I  completed  my  invention,  when  I  took  out  my  last 
weaving  patent,  August  the  1st  of  that  year. 

So  determined  was  Cartwright  to  make  Ms 
invention  of  practical  service  that  he  devoted 
his  modest  fortune  to  starting  a  factory  where 
the  newly  discovered  steam-engine  of  Watt 
furnished  the  power.    This  was  in  1789. 

Two  years  later  a  Manchester  firm  signed  a 
contract  for  fonr  hundred  looms,  but  here  the 
weavers,  whom  he  sought  to  help,  nearly 
wrecked  the  venture.  *^His  ^men  of  iron'  will 
starve  out  workers  of  flesh  and  blood,''  they 
declared.  And  one  might  the  factory  was 
burned,  and  with  it  hundreds  of  the  machines 
which  represented  the  entire  wealth  of  the  gen- 
erous inventor. 

^^The  ways  of  business  are  too  much  for  a 
simple  scholar,"  lamented  the  poet-parson 
whimsically.    **My  poor  earthen  pot  could  not 

59 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

hold  its  own  with  the  brass  ones  in  the  stream 
of  commerce/^ 
But  the  merchants   and  factory-owners   of 


Power  Loom 

Manchester  came  to  his  rescue,  begging  Parlia- 
ment to  recognize  the  value  to  the  nation  of 
his  invention  by  an  award  that  should  at  least 

60 


EDMUND  CARTWRIGHT 

cover  his  losses;  and  a  grant  of  ten  thousand 
pounds  was  made  to  the  inventor  of  the  power- 
loom. 

This  gave  the  poet,  who  had  proved  himself 
a  mechanical  genius  as  well  as  a  scholar,  the 
opportunity  to  try  his  hand  at  new  devices. 
One  of  these  was  a  wool-combing  machine. 
Turning  his  attention  to  the  farmers'  prob- 
lems, he  contrived  machines  to  aid  in  planting 
and  in  reaping,  also  a  device  for  kneading 
bread  to  lighten  the  labor  of  his  own  kitchen. 

Then  he  began  to  speculate  on  the  possibility 
of  making  the  steam-engine  play  a  part  in  water 
travel.  We  are  told  that,  when  Robert  Fulton 
was  studying  painting  in  England  under  Ben- 
jamin West,  he  met  the  enthusiastic  inventor, 
who  showed  him  a  model  he  had  fashioned  of 
a  boat  propelled  by  steam.  *  ^  Mark  my  words, '  * 
declared  Edmund  Cartwright,  *^the  day  is 
surely  coming  when  steam  will  furnish  the 
power  in  transportation  both  by  land  and 
water. ' ' 

But  never  while  turning  his  hand  to  practical 
inventions  did  the  gentle  scholar  lose  his  in- 
terest in  poetry.     *^At  eighty  he  was  still  as 

61 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

merry  and  alert  as  a  youth,''  the  poet  Crabbe 
says  of  him  in  his  letters.  ^'Few  persons  could 
tell  a  good  story  so  well.  I  can  just  remember 
him,  the  portly,  dignified  old  gentleman  of  the 
last  generation,  grave  and  polite,  but  full  of 
humor  and  spirit. " 


62 


THE  YANKEE  WHO  CROWNED 
KING  COTTON 

Eli  Whitney  (1765-1825) 

THAT  lad  will  never  make  a  proper  farmer, 
Mr.  Whitney.  Yon  Ve  let  him  potter 
about  and  tinker  with  tools  until  he  has  lost  all 
taste  for  hard  work. '  * 

Mr.  Whitney  had  been  showing  his  neighbor 
a  fiddle  which  the  clever  fingers  of  his  twelve- 
year-old  boy  had  fashioned. 

**Yes,  he  's  not  much  use  in  the  fields,  but 
he  's  fair  crazy  to  be  at  the  work-bench.  I  tell 
him  that  it  's  all  very  well  to  have  a  turn  at  the 
tools  on  winter  evenings,  but  that  woodworking 
and  the  like  will  never  make  his  fortune,"  re- 
plied Farmer  Whitney.  **  Still,  he  comes  by 
his  taste  naturally  enough.  There  's  many  a 
fireside  hereabouts  that  knows  the  comfort  of 
chairs  I  Ve  made,  and  you  yourself  know 
where  to  come  when  your  wagon  needs  a  new 

63 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

wheel.  But  I  Ve  never  been  one  to  neglect  my 
crops  for  any  fancy,"  lie  added. 

^^  Perhaps  I  '11  prove  that  I  '11  not  neglect  my 
crops  either;  only  they  may  be  a  different  sort 
from  those  most  people  grow,"  pnt  in  the  lad, 
boldly. 

It  was  soon  proved  that  Eli  Whitney  conld 
not  only  make  and  mend  fiddles  bnt  also  do 
many  another  job  requiring  skilful  fingers.  At 
the  time  of  the  Eevolutionary  War,  when  he 
was  still  a  boy  in  his  early  teens,  he  turned 
out  a  very  profitable  crop  of  nails — then  in 
great  demand  because  of  the  interrupted  trade 
with  England — and  at  various  kinds  of  wood- 
work and  metal-work  he  proved  that  he  could 
surpass  any  mechanic  in  town.  Indeed,  the 
boy's  business  grew  so  that  he  set  out  to  find  a 
helper.  This  search  took  him  forty  miles  from 
the  little  Massachusetts  village,  Westboro, 
where  he  had  been  born.  This  was  the  longest 
journey  into  the  world  he  had  yet  made,  and  the 
mile-stones  of  that  journey  were  the  workshops 
that  he  visited. 

^^I  brought  back  some  one  to  help  me  turn 
out  nails,"  said  Eli,  ^'and  I  also  brought  back 

64 


ELI  WHITNEY 

many  useful  notions  that  were  of  use  in  the 
tasks  ahead.'' 

After  the  close  of  the  war  brought  an  end 
to  the  demand  for  Eli's  home-made  nails,  he 
was  not  slow  to  find  opportunities  in  other  di- 
rections. To-day  it  was  a  fashion  in  ladies' 
bonnets  that  made  a  market  for  a  certain  sort 
of  long  pins ;  to-morrow  he  made  such  cleverly 
turned  walking-sticks  that  another  market  for 
his  wares  was  created.  Here  was  a  jack  of  all 
trades  who  seemed  destined  to  prove  himself  a 
master  of  each. 

**Well,  there  seems  little  doubt  but  what  you 
have  proved  you  can  bring  out  crops  of  your 
own,"  admitted  Eli's  father.  ^'A  first-rate 
mechanic  need  never  know  want. " 

**But  I  am  not  sure  that  I  want  to  be  a  me- 
chanic. I  want  to  go  to  Yale  College  and  have 
a  look  at  the  world  of  books,"  was  the  astonish- 
ing reply. 

*^Well,  Eli,  you  have  always  been  a  queer 
one,"  said  Mr.  Whitney,  but  there  was  a  note 
of  pride  in  his  voice.  ''At  nine  you  begged  to 
leave  your  books  for  the  work-bench  and  now 
at  nineteen  you  want  to  go  to  school  again. 

65 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

"Wliat  do  you  think  about  it,  wifef  he  added. 

*^Why  it  is  certain  that  Eli  has  neither  the 
money  nor  the  book-learning  to  take  him  to  col- 
lege, ' '  was  the  matter-of-fact  reply  of  the  step- 
mother who  always  prided  herself  on  doing  her 
full  duty,  but  who  often  went  about  it  in  a  way 
that  won  small  thanks.  *^He  has  learned  to 
make  a  good  living;  why  should  he  plan  to 
spend  money  instead  of  providing  for  him- 
self r' 

It  was  now  quite  clear  to  the  young  man  that 
he  could  look  for  no  help  from  others.  He 
would  have  to  make  his  own  way. 

The  odd  jobs  that  filled  his  shop  had  a  new 
interest.  They  were  helping  him  on  his  road 
to  college.  And  as  he  worked  at  his  bench  a 
book  was  always  handy  to  keep  him  company. 

For  four  years  he  steered  a  straight  course — 
working  and  saving,  earning  and  learning — 
never  for  a  moment  losing  sight  of  his  goal. 
Any  kind  of  work  that  offered  the  best  return 
was  eagerly  seized.  At  planting  and  harvesting 
times  he  did  farm  work;  in  the  winter  months 
he  taught  school;  and  always  the  skilled  me- 

66 


ELI  WHITNEY 

chanic  was  ready  to  find  time  for  the  tasks  that 
came  to  his  shop. 

When  young  Whitney  was  twenty-three  his 
father  said,  ^^You  shall  not  have  to  wait  longer 
for  your  chance.  I  will  lend  you  what  is  needed 
in  addition  to  your  savings;  I  have  faith  that 
you  will  pay  back  what  is  given  you  both  in 
money  and  in  opportunity." 

We  may  say  here  in  passing  that  within  three 
years  of  Eli  Whitney's  graduation  he  had  re- 
paid his  father  the  money  borrowed;  and  as 
for  his  use  of  the  opportunities  which  a  broader 
education  offered,  all  the  succeeding  years  of 
his  life  tell  that  story. 

The  young  man  soon  made  himself  at  home 
in  his  new  world  of  books.  He  was  not  ashamed 
to  find  himself  some  seven  years  older  than 
most  of  his  classmates.  ^'I  have  surely  gained 
something  from  my  experience  with  practical 
work,"  he  said  to  himself,  ''that  should  help 
me  to  make  good  use  of  all  I  have  a  chance  to 
learn  here." 

In  those  days  college  courses  were  not  great- 
ly in  advance  of  what  most  high  schools  offer 
to-day,  and  there  were  no  technical  or  engi- 

67 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

neering  departments  to  meet  the  needs  of  young 
men  with  gifts  like  those  of  Eli  Whitney.  Still 
his  talent  conld  not  be  hidden.  One  day  a  piece 
of  delicate  experimental  apparatus  was  found 
to  be  in  need  of  repair. 

^^We  must  send  that  abroad  where  it  was 
made, ' '  said  the  instructor.  ^ '  There  is  no  place 
on  this  side  of  the  water  where  it  can  be 
handled. ' ' 

^^Let  me  see  what  I  can  do  with  it/'  said 
young  Whitney.  ^^I  '11  promise  not  to  leave  it 
any  the  worse." 

Within  a  few  days  he  asked  the  teacher  to 
test  his  work.  ''Why,  I  can  hardly  believe  that 
it  was  ever  out  of  order!  You  are  certainly 
at  home  with  tools!''  exclaimed  the  professor. 

''A  first-rate  mechanic  was  spoiled  when  you 
took  it  into  your  head  to  come  here,"  said  a 
carpenter  who  was  employed  about  the  college 
buildings. 

When  young  Whitney  was  graduated,  in  his 
twenty- seventh  year,  he  decided  to  take  a  po- 
sition as  teacher  and  to  read  law  in  his  spare 
time.    A  school  in  the  South  seemed  to  offer  a 


ELI  WHITNEY 

good  opening,  and  lie  took  passage  on  a  boat 
sailing  from  New  York  to  Savannali. 

This  voyage  proved  a  journey  into  a  new  life. 
One  of  his  fellow  passengers,  the  widow  of 
Nathanael  Greene,  the  famous  general  of  the 
Eevolution,  took  an  interest  in  this  brilliant 
young  Northerner  who  was  seeking  his  fortune 
in  the  South,  and  invited  him  to  her  home  in 
Savannah.  ^'You  must  begin  to  know  Georgia 
by  seeing  what  plantation  life  is  like.  Be  one 
of  our  family  until  you  find  where  you  really 
want  to  take  root,"  said  Mrs.  Greene. 

Mulberry  Grove  was  a  beautiful  estate  twelve 
miles  from  Savannah,  which  had  been  confis- 
cated at  the  time  its  owner  took  arms  against 
the  Colonies,  and  had  been  given  to  General 
Greene  by  the  state  of  Georgia,  in  recognition 
of  his  services  to  his  country  during  the  Revo- 
lution. 

*^I  seem  to  have  stepped  on  a  new  planet,  a 
happier  star  than  that  which  knows  the  patch 
on  the  map  we  call  New  England,''  said  the 
visitor  as  he  looked  at  the  live-oaks  hung  with 
festoons  of  soft  gray  moss  and  at  the  glossy- 
leaved   magnolias    where   mocking-birds    sang 

69 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

and  jewel-like  Inimming-birds  darted  abouu.  In 
the  fields  beyond  the  grove  that  surrounded 
the  mansion  stretched  the  fields  of  rice  and 
cotton  where  the  negroes  sang  and  whistled  as 
they  worked. 

At  night  Whitney  loved  to  hear  the  negroes 
singing  the  old  plantation  airs  as  they  sat  in 
front  of  their  cabins  picking  seeds  from  the 
**  vegetable  wool.'^  It  was  a  tedious  task,  and 
an  overseer  had  to  keep  sharp  watch  to  nudge 
the  idle  and  spur  on  with  a  word  the  too-lively 
ones  who  were  ready  to  drop  their  task  for 
fun  by  the  way.  There  were,  however,  the 
holiday  times  when  banjos  were  brought  out 
and  all  the  evening  was  given  over  to  merry- 
making,— to  singing  and  dancing  and  a  feast 
of  watermelon  or  roasted  corn. 

^^  There  is  only  one  thing  to  mar  my  enjoy- 
ment of  your  happy  South, ' '  said  Whitney  one 
day.  ^^I  have  just  received  news  that  makes  it 
seem  likely  that  I  must  leave  it.  Instead  of  a 
hundred  guineas  as  salary,  my  school  now  pro- 
poses to  pay  me  only  fifty.  Of  course  I  cannot 
accept  that.'' 

^* Surely  not,''  agreed  Mrs.  Greene,  heartily. 
70 


ELI  WHITNEY 

''But  do  not  leave  Georgia  until  we  liave  a 
chance  to  prove  there  is  a  much  fairer  fortune 
in  store  for  you  here.  Go  on  with  the  reading 
of  law  as  you  had  planned,  at  Mulberry 
Grove  for  the  present.  The  children  will  be 
overjoyed  to  learn  that  their  new  playmate 
whose  wonderworking  fingers  are  always  ready 
to  make  or  mend  toys  for  them  is  not  going 
away  to  keep  school  just  yet." 

Indeed,  Whitney's  mechanical  turn  had 
proved  of  service  on  more  than  one  occasion. 
That  very  evening,  when  Mrs.  Greene  cried  out 
in  vexation  that  her  embroidery  frame  was 
fashioned  so  clumsily  that  it  tore  her  delicate 
work,  her  guest  came  to  the  rescue  and  con- 
structed one  more  to  her  fancy. 

This  incident  was  fresh  in  her  mind  next 
day  when  some  visiting  planters  were  speaking 
of  the  work  of  picking  out  cotton-seed  from  the 
fiber  as  the  great  handicap  of  the  cotton  in- 
dustry. 

*^If  only  there  were  some  machine  to  do  this 
work,  what  a  fortune  there  would  be  in  our 
fields!''  said  Major  Pendleton,  who  had  been  a 
comrade  of  General  Greene. 

71 


CONQUESTS  OP  INVENTION 

'^Ask  Mr.  Whitney  to  make  yon  one!''  ex- 
claimed Mrs.  Greene.  ^ '  He  can  make  anything. ' ' 

Major  Pendleton  looked  curiously  at  the 
young  man.  *^Is  it  possible  that  we  have  an 
inventor  among  us?"  he  said  banteringly. 
^'Well,  if  you  can  work  some  magic  to  do  this 
job,  you  're  the  man  for  us." 

*^It  is  a  new  problem,  gentlemen,"  replied 
Whitney,  modestly.  ^^I  come  from  the  North, 
where  we  never  see  the  snow  of  your  cotton- 
fields^  as  it  grows  in  the  boll.  But  let  me  make 
a  few  experiments  with  your  *  vegetable  wool.' 
It  may  be  that  something  will  come  of  it." 

The  next  day  Eli  Whitney  began  his  experi- 
ments by  trying  to  pull  the  cotton-seeds  from 
the  lint  by  hand.  ^^No  wonder  your  negroes 
need  a  strict  overseer  to  keep  them  at  this 
task!"  he  exclaimed.  ^^I  must  see  if  there  are 
not  some  machine  fingers  that  will  not  tire  to 
do  this  tedious  job  in  place  of  fingers  of  flesh 
and  blood." 

In  a  basement  room  of  Mrs.  Greene's  man- 
sion he  set  up  a  work-bench  and  faced  the  prob- 
lem squarely.  In  course  of  time  he  constructed 
a  ^ '  gin. ' '    Its  plan  was  simple  enough :  A  num- 

72 


ELI  WHITNEY 

ber  of  circular  saws,  so  closely  grouped  on  a 
shaft  as  to  make  a  roller  of  points  or  teeth, 
seized  the  cotton  as  it  was  fed  into  the  machine 
and  pulled  it  through  a  sort  of  grating  where  it 
was  separated  from  the  seeds,  which  fell  un- 
broken below  the  saws  to  the  bottom  of  the 
hopper.  A  brush  revolving  rapidly  in  the  op- 
posite direction  from  the  roller  cleared  the 
teeth  of  lint.  This  was  the  cotton-gin,  which, 
turned  by  hand,  did  in  a  moment  with  its  hun- 
dreds of  points  the  work  which  had  formerly 
been  done  slowly  and  painfully  by  as  many 
hands. 

It  was  no  harder  to  turn  that  first  cotton-gin 
than  if  it  had  been  an  ordinary  grindstone,  but 
what  if  it  could  have  ground  out  the  story  of 
the  hard  work  that  had  gone  to  its  making! 
Its  inventor  had  not  only  to  construct  the  ma- 
chine but  also  to  make  most  of  his  tools  and 
make  over  his  material.  For  instance,  when 
he  wanted  sheets  of  iron  plate  for  his  circular 
saws  there  was  none  to  be  had.  While  he  was 
wondering  where  he  might  find  something  to 
serve  his  purpose,  Mrs.  Greene's  small  daugh- 

73 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

ter  came  to  her  friend  ^Vho  could  make  any- 
thing'' with  a  request. 

'* Please  make  a  cage  for  my  bird,"  she 
begged.  ^ '  Here  is  a  box  of  wire  Mother  got  for 
it.    I  know  you  can  make  a  beautiful  cage. ' ' 

Mr.  Whitney  always  looked  pleasant  when  he 
was  asked  to  do  something,  but  now  his  face 
shone  as  if  the  sun  had  suddenly  come  from 
behind  a  cloud. 

'  *  This  wire  sets  me  free  from  my  cage ! "  he 
said  with  a  laugh  of  triumph.  ^'Your  singer 
shall  have  a  very  palace  of  a  cage,  and  there  '11 
be  enough  left  to  serve  the  turn  of  my  cotton- 
picker  ! ' ' 

As  the  bird  sang  on  his  new  perch,  Mr.  Whit- 
ney whistled  at  his  bench.  His  happy  tune  did 
not  change  when  he  found  that  the  wire  was 
too  thick  and  that  he  must  draw  it  out  to  a  suit- 
able size.  Nor  did  it  quite  die  away  when  he 
found  that  he  would  have  to  fashion  tools  for 
this  task.  The  wire  was  made  of  the  required 
thinness  and  then  a  long  series  of  experiments 
was  made  with  different  lengths  and  different 
arrangements  until  at  last  the  right  thing  was 
hit  upon. 

74 


ELI  WHITNEY 

There  had  been  a  discouraged  moment  when 
Whitney  could  not  see  what  was  to  be  done  to 
prevent  the  clogging  of  the  wire  teeth  with  the 
fiber. 

*^It  seems  to  me  something  of  this  sort  might 
keep  you  swept  clean!''  laughed  Mrs.  Greene, 
picking  up  the  brush  from  the  hearth  and  bran- 
dishing it  over  the  choked  cylinder. 

^'Why,  of  course!''  cried  Whitney,  echoing 
her  laugh.  ^'It  takes  a  woman  to  help  us  out 
when  we  can't  see  what  is  right  before  our 
eyes !  I  '11  put  in  another  brush  roller  to  spin 
around  in  the  opposite  direction  and  snatch  off 
with  its  bristles  the  lint  that  gets  caught  in  the 
wire  teeth." 

When  this  was  accomplished,  Mrs.  Greene 
cried,  *  ^  Now  let  us  call  the  neighbors  in ! "  Her 
assembled  friends — many  of  whom  were 
planters — ^were  not  slow  to  recognize  what  this 
invention  would  mean  to  them  and  to  the  South. 

^'And  it  should  mean  a  gold-mine  to  you, 
young  man,"  they  declared  warmly.  ^* Don't 
delay  to  take  out  a  patent,  or  to  send  us  a  sup- 
ply of  gins." 

*  *  I  hate  to  throw  my  study  of  law  overboard, 
75 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

and  to  strike  out  on  the  stormy  sea  tliat  wrecks 
most  inventors/'  said  Whitney,  donbtfuUy.  ^*I 
certainly  have  little  spirit  and  no  money  for  the 
struggle. ' ' 

Then  Phineas  Miller,  the  manager  of  Mrs. 
Greene's  estate,  said,  **Let  ns  form  a  partner- 
ship. Yon  furnish  the  brains  and  I  '11  risk  the 
cash  needed."  Whitney,  who  knew  that  Mr. 
Miller  was  as  good  as  his  word,  agreed ;  and  the 
firm  of  Miller  and  Whitney  was  then  and  there 
formed.  May  27,  1793. 

There  were  troublous  times  ahead  for  the 
firm.  Despite  the  great  wealth  that  the  inven- 
tion brought  to  the  planters,  they  sought  to 
avoid  sharing  any  of  it  with  the  inventor.  Dis- 
honest men  attempted  to  make  similar  gins, 
thus  infringing  his  patent.  There  was  a  long 
and  discouraging  fight  before  Whitney  could 
secure  even  a  small  part  of  the  reward  that 
should  have  been  his.  At  last  some  of  the 
Southern  states  levied  a  tax  on  gins  in  order 
to  make  an  award  to  the  man  who  ^^had  crowned 
King  Cotton."  South  Carolina  gave  $50,000; 
North  Carolina  $20,000;  Tennessee  $10,000; 
and  the  other  states  together  about  $10,000.    If 

76 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

Eli  Whitney  and  his  stanch  ally,  Phineas  Mil- 
ler, had  been  working  chiefly  for  a  golden  har- 
vest, they  would  have  been  disappointed  and 
embittered  men. 

But  no  one  could  look  at  Whitney — tall,  com- 
manding, and  kindly,  a  man  of  many  interests 
and  many  friends — as  one  whose  worth  or 
whose  happiness  was  to  be  measured  by  the 
dollar-mark.  His  inventive  brain  was  always 
alert.  Now  he  made  a  venture  in  the  employ- 
ment of  cement  for  the  foundation  and  walls 
of  his  house,  saying,  * '  The  day  is  not  far  distant 
when  this  material  will  play  a  great  part  in  the 
building  of  our  cities. ' '  Now  he  busied  himself 
with  constructing  various  tools  and  machines 
as  some  need  suggested  to  his  original  genius 
the  way  in  which  it  might  be  met.  But  for  none 
of  these  things  would  he  take  out  patents. 

**The  experience  I  have  had  with  patents  in 
the  case  of  the  cotton-gin  will  last  me  through 
life,''  he  used  to  say. 

What  the  cotton-gin  meant  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  South  may  be  indicated  by  noting 
that  in  1796  cotton  was  so  abundant  that  some 

78 


ELI  WHITNEY 

plantation-owners  began  to  fear  that  the  mar- 
ket would  be  flooded. 

*'Well!''  cried  one  planter,  gazing  in  awe  at 
his  bumper  crop,  ^'this  is  the  end  of  cotton! 
There  ^s  enough  in  my  gin-house  to-day  to  make 
stockings  for  all  the  people  in  America.''  He 
was  unable  to  picture  what  the  South  was  des- 
tined to  do  in  clothing  the  people  of  the  world. 

Eli  Whitney  was  the  man  whose  invention 
had  brought  this  new  tide  of  prosperity.  He 
was  the  kingmaker  who  gave  American  cotton 
its  power  and  place  in  the  markets  of  the  world. 


79 


BY-PEODUCTS 

A  WISE  man  once  said  that  *'a  weed  is  a 
plant  whose  use  has  not  yet  been  found 
out.''  Our  ignorance  is  measured  by  what  we 
waste.  Advance  in  knowledge  and  increased 
efficiency  are  measured  by  the  removal  of  waste. 
Meat-packers  find  a  use  for  all  parts  of  the  ani- 
mals in  which  they  deal.  The  person  who  de- 
clared, *^  To-day  all  of  the  pig  serves  some 
purpose,  except  the  squeal, ' '  was  trying  to  em- 
phasize the  way  in  which  modern  industry  uses 
much  that  was  formerly  thrown  aside. 

The  story  of  the  wealth  that  lies  in  the  re- 
moval of  waste  is  well  illustrated  by  the  story 
of  the  by-products  of  cotton.  For  hundreds 
of  years,  when  the  fibers  that  could  be  spun 
into  thread  had  been  separated  from  pods  and 
seeds,  the  remainder  was  cast  aside  as  useless. 
To-day,  leaves,  pods,  and  seeds  make  a  most 
valuable  fodder  for  cattle;  the  fluff  that  clings 

.80 


BY-PRODUCTS 

to  the  seeds  as  they  pass  through  the  gin  makes 
felt  hats;  other  waste  fiber  is  converted  into 
paper;  the  root  furnishes  a  useful  drug,  and  the 
bark  of  the  cotton-stalk  makes  excellent  bags 
and  mats.  The  uses  of  the  seeds,  which  before 
1860  were  thrown  away,  would  fill  a  volume. 
After  the  valuable  oil  which  they  contain  is 
extracted  to  serve  in  the  preparation  of  food- 
stuffs, medicine,  and  soap,  the  remainder  is 
utilized  as  a  food  for  cattle  and  also  as  a  much- 
prized  fertilizer. 

Indeed,  we  can  begin  to  understand  why  cot- 
ton is  called  the  '^ money  crop"  of  the  South 
when  we  pass  in  review  but  a  few  of  its  prod- 
ucts. Dr.  Scherer  in  his  book,  ^'Cotton  as  a 
World  Power,"  quotes  from  a  North  Carolina 
professor  of  agriculture  this  spirited  para- 
graph : 

You  get  up  in  the  morning  from  a  bed,  clothed  in  cotton. 
You  step  out  on  a  cotton  rug.  You  let  in  the  light  by 
raising  a  cotton  window-shade.  You  wash  with  soap  made 
partly  from  cottonseed  oil  products.  You  dry  your  face 
on  a  cotton  towel.  You  array  yourself  chiefly  in  cotton 
clothing.  The  "silk"  in  which  your  wife  dresses  is  prob- 
ably mercerized  cotton.  At  the  breakfast  table  you  do  not 
get  away  from  King  Cotton;  cottolene  has  probably  taken 

81 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

the  place  of  lard  in  the  biscuit  you  eat.  The  beef  and  the 
mutton  were  probably  fattened  on  cottonseed  meal  and 
hulls.  Your  "imported  olive  oil"  is  more  likely  from  a 
Texas  cotton  farm  than  from  an  Italian  villa.  Your  "but- 
ter" is  probably  a  product  of  Southern  cottonseed.  The 
coal  that  bums  in  the  fire  may  have  been  mined  by  the 
light  of  a  cotton-oil  lamp.  The  sheep  from  which  your 
woolen  clothing  came  were  probably  fed  on  cotton-seed. 
The  tonic  you  take  may  contain  an  extract  of  cotton  root- 
bark.  Your  morning  daily  may  be  printed  on  cotton  waste 
paper — and  even  in  the  skirmish  it  tells  about,  the  con- 
tending forces  were  clothed  in  khaki  duck,  slept  under  cot- 
ton tents,  cotton  was  an  essential  in  the  high  explosives  that 
were  used,  and  when  at  last  war  had  done  its  worst,  surgery 
itself  called  cotton  into  requisition  to  aid  the  injured  and 
dying. 


82 


INVENTIONS  IN  THE  HOME 


Work — ^work — ^work, 

Till  the  brain  begins  to  swim; 
Work — work — work, 

Till  the  eyes  are  heavy  and  dim! 
Seam,  and  gusset,  and  band, 

Band,  and  gusset,  and  seam, 
Till  over  the  buttons  I  fall  asleep, 

And  sew  them  on  in  a  dream! 

"The  Song  of  the  Shirt"— Thomas  Hood. 


INVENTIONS  IN  THE  HOME 

THE  inventions  that  set  women  free  from 
household  slavery  mark  important  steps 
in  hnman  progress.  When  the  mother  of  the 
home  had  to  spin  and  weave  the  cloth,  and  make 
as  well  as  mend  all  the  clothing  of  her  family, 
there  was  little  time  for  anything  but  drudgery. 

We  pity  the  savage  mother  with  her  baby 
strapped  on  her  back  as  she  hoes  corn,  cuts 
wood,  and  carries  water.  There  is  no  room 
for  thought  or  fancy,  for  smiles  or  tears,  in 
such  a  life.  She  is  only  a  dull,  heavy-eyed  beast 
of  burden. 

But  how  many  women  of  our  America  in 
^'the  good  old  days''  had  a  like  fate!  How 
many  housewives  worked  from  dawn  to  dark, 
day  in  and  day  out,  at  tasks  that  were  always 
doing  and  never  done !  Most  of  them  were  old 
and  worn  as  if  with  age  before  they  had  a 
chance  to  be  young.    Many  of  them  went  mad ; 

85 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

their  hearts  and  minds  were  crushed  by  the 
ceaseless,  changeless  grind  as  between  heavy 
millstones. 

To-day,  women,  freed  from  household  slav- 
ery, can  give  better  care  and  training  to  their 
children  than  was  possible  in  the  old  days.  The 
housekeeper  and  drudge  gives  place  to  the 
home-maker.  And,  since  ^^the  hand  that  rocks 
the  cradle  is  the  hand  that  rules  the  world" — 
because  the  welfare  of  the  men  and  women  of 
to-morrow  depends  upon  the  happiness  and 
well-being  of  the  children  of  to-day — so  what 
has  brought  advance  to  the  women  has  brought 
progress  to  the  race.  When  you  help  a  man 
your  gift  may  stop  with  him,  but  when  you  help 
a  mother  you  give  to  a  family. 


86 


THE  INVENTOR  OF  THE  SEWING- 
MACHINE 

Elias  Howe  (1819-1867) 

A  SMALL  boy  of  six  years  was  busy  stitch- 
ing wire  teeth  into  the  heavy  ^* cards'' 
that  were  to  be  used  in  straightening  out  the 
cotton  fiber  in  the  mills  of  New  England.  His 
father  was  a  hard-working  farmer,  but  he  could 
not  coax  from  his  stony  fields  crops  large 
enough  to  feed  eight  hungry  children,  so  he  had 
to  turn  his  hand  to  other  tasks  such  as  grinding 
meal  for  the  farmers  of  the  neighborhood,  saw- 
ing and  planing  boards  and  splitting  shingles. 
The  boys  and  girls  of  the  family  early  learned 
how  to  help  out  in  various  tasks,  for  one  pair 
of  hands  could  not  do  everything. 

*  ^  Maybe  some  day  I  '11  make  a  mill  to  stitch 
these  old  cotton  cards,"  boasted  the  little  boy, 
whose  fingers  soon  tired. 

87 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

Elias  Howe  was  never  tired,  however,  watch- 
ing his  father's  mills  at  work,  and  it  was  a 
proud  day  when  he  conld  help  with  the  grinding 
and  the  sawing.  He  was  a  lively  lad  and  full 
of  fun;  and  he  managed  to  make  merry  while 
he  worked  about  the  busy  machines  or  took  his 
part  in  the  farm  tasks.  The  ways  of  machinery 
were  his  chief  delight. 

^^The  boy  takes  after  his  uncles;  they  were 
never  happy  unless  they  were  working  with 
tools  and  contriving  new  ways  of  doing  things," 
said  his  father. 

The  two  brothers  of  the  older  Elias  Howe 
had  more  than  an  ordinary  inventive  turn.  One 
of  them,  William  Howe,  invented  a  truss  or 
supporting  frame  that  is  still  in  use  for  roofs 
and  bridges. 

Little  Elias  Howe  was  constantly  getting  val- 
uable ideas  from  what  went  on  about  him,  and 
his  ready  skill  with  tools  was  won  through 
doing  the  everyday  tasks  of  home  and  farm 
that  fell  to  his  lot.  Those  were  times  when  one 
did  not  at  once  go  to  a  store  to  buy  what  was 
needed  in  the  way  of  household  utensils  and 
farm  equipment.    People  first  studied  how  to 

88 


Courtesy  of  The  Mentor 


Elias  Howe 


ELIAS  HOWE 

make  or  mend  what  was  at  hand.  Elias  became 
an  adept  in  the  art  of  piecing  together  and  mak- 
ing over  things.  As  he  learned  by  doing  his 
wits  became  as  nimble  as  his  fingers,  and  his 
cheerfulness  over  a  task  made  him  a  general 
favorite. 

^^No  one  like  Elias  for  grit  and  gumption/' 
people  said.  *^He  is  a  hard-working  lad,  but 
easy  company.  And  a  boy  who  sticks  to  things 
the  way  he  does  has  something  in  him  that 
deserves  to  succeed. '^ 

Elias  Howe  went  to  school  in  his  native  vil- 
lage— Spencer,  Massachusetts,  about  twenty 
miles  from  Worcester  —  during  the  winter 
jXLonths;  and  in  the  spring  of  his  twelfth  year 
he  began  to  work  for  his  **keep''  on  a  neigh- 
boring farm. 

** There  '11  be  one  boy  less  to  feed  at  home," 
he  said.  ^*And  I'll  learn  the  A-B-C's  of 
farming, ' ' 

But  the  boy,  though  wiry  and  willing,  had 
never  been  strong,  and,  moreover,  a  trouble- 
some lameness  made  him  unfitted  for  heavy 
farm  work.  So  he  went  back  to  work  in  his 
father's  mills  until  he  was  sixteen,  when  he 

89 


CX)NQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

started  as  apprentice  in  a  machine-shop  at 
Lowell.  When,  two  years  later,  a  panic  led  to 
the  closing  of  all  the  mills  in  that  town,  Howe 
went  to  Boston,  where  he  found  a  place  in  the 
shop  of  Ari  Davis,  a  manufacturer  and  repairer 
of  surveying-instruments  and  timepieces. 

*' Davis  was  an  odd  duck — ^you  wouldn't 
think  to  look  at  his  queer  head  that  it  held  so 
many  ideas,''  Howe  said  years  later.  ^'But 
instrument-makers  and  inventors  of  different 
machines  knew  where  to  go  for  help  and  sug- 
gestions, as  bees  know  where  to  find  honey. 
Nothing  could  have  been  better  for  me  than  the 
experience  I  got  in  Davis's  shop.  It  was  there 
that  my  idea  of  the  sewing-machine  was  born. 
A  man  who  was  trying  to  invent  a  knitting- 
machine  dropped  in  one  day.  ^Why  bother 
about  that  thing?'  said  Davis.  ^Why  don't  you 
make  a  sewing-machine?'  " 
,  Young  Howe  listened  carelessly.  He  did  not 
dream  that  the  turning-point  in  his  life  had 
been  reached.  His  attention  was  caught  by  the 
boastful  emphasis  with  which  he  heard  Davis 
declare,  **A  sewing-machine  would  be  no  great 
wonder!     I  could  make  one,  myself!"     Then 

90 


ELIAS  HOWE 

the  idea  flashed  into  the  mind  of  the  appren- 
tice, who  since  he  was  a  tiny  boy,  had  longed  to 
make  machines,  that  he  might  be  the  fortunate 
inventor. 

**Many  people  try  things;  few  have  the  per- 
severance to  carry  their  attempts  on  to  suc- 
cess,'' he  said  to  himself.  *'I  shall  win  by 
sticking  to  this  idea  till  something  comes  of  it. 
There  should  be  fame  and  fortune  in  it,  for  it 
will  save  hands  much  weary  work.  It  will 
mean  a  new  life  to  women  who,  like  my  mother, 
have  a  family  of  children  to  keep  in  clothes.'' 

So  he  set  to  work  with  a  will.  As  a  starting- 
point,  Howe  knew  machinery  as  an  Indian 
knew  woodcraft.  He  could  hardly  remember 
the  time  when  he  had  not  understood  the  ways 
of  wheels,  ratchets,  and  springs.  At  Lowell  he 
had  had  practical  experience  with  spinning- 
machines  and  power-looms.  He  was,  moreover, 
used  as  we  have  seen,  to  exercising  ingenuity 
in  making  things.  So  it  was  not  quite  a  leap 
in  the  dark  when  he  said,  ^  ^I  will  make  a  sewing- 
machine  ;  I  will  not  turn  my  face  from  the  task 
till  I  have  won  success. ' ' 

Perhaps  if  he  could  have  seen  the  dark  way 
91 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

ahead  his  heart  might  have  faltered.  Would 
the  bright  fortune  that  beckoned  at  the  end  of 
the  long  road  have  been  able  to  lure  him  on 
despite  all  the  trials  and  hardships  that  were  to 
test  his  soul  before  he  was  to  see  any  result  of 
his  work? 

As  Howe  watched  his  wife  sewing  he  tried  to 
imagine  a  machine  that  would  be  able  to  go 
through  the  same  motions.  This  led  him  off  on 
a  false  trail.  There  were  many  attempts  and 
many  failures  before  the  idea  suddenly  flashed 
through  his  brain  that  his  machine  was  not 
obliged  to  move  as  the  hand  did.  Why  should 
his  mighty  stitcher  that  was  to  do  the  work  of 
many  hands  not  move  in  a  manner  of  its  own? 

**A  mere  trifle — like  a  chance  thought — often 
seems  to  be  the  thing  that  changes  a  whole  life 
story/'  said  Howe.  ^^But  perhaps  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  chance.  It  may  be  what  we  call 
little  things  are  those  that  really  count  for 
most.'' 

At  any  rate,  the  idea  of  a  machine  working 
out  a  new  stitch  was  the  turning-point  in  the 
story  of  his  invention.  Machines  that  made  a 
chain-stitch  were  in  existence ;  he  had  probably 

92 


ELIAS  HOWE 

seen  or  heard  of  one  of  these.  He  dreamed, 
however,  of  making  something  that  would  work 
in  a  new  and  better  way.  It  is  small  wonder 
that  he  imagined  a  shuttle  as  playing  a  part  in 
his  machine,  for  all  his  life  he  had  seen  shuttles 
flying  to  and  fro  in  looms. 

^^Why  not  make  a  sort  of  loom  stitch  where 
one  thread  is  woven  in  and  out  with  another  T' 
he  said  to  himself.  There  were  more  trials  and 
failures,  but  he  realized  exultingly  that  he  was 
on  the  right  track.  At  last  he  hit  upon  his  lock- 
stitch, where  his  needle  plying  ever  up  and  down 
in  the  same  spot  threw,  when  under  the  cloth,  a 
loop  which  was  interwoven  with  the  thread  from 
a  shuttle  that  clicked  back  and  forth  at  regular 
intervals. 

Elias  Howe  was  now  sure  that  he  had  a  good 
thing,  but  he  knew  that  there  were  many  points 
in  which  his  machine  needed  improvement.  He 
must  have  time  to  experiment  and  to  make  a 
perfect  model.  What  was  he  to  do?  He  had  to 
earn  the  living  of  his  family;  and  with  all  his 
skill  and  hard  work  he  often  received  only  nine 
dollars  a  week.  That  gave  him  no  chance  to 
save  or  to  work  on  his  invention. 

93 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

^*At  that  time  I  was  frequently  so  tired  when 
I  came  in  from  my  day's  work,''  said  Howe, 
^  ^  that  I  could  do  nothing  but  go  to  bed,  longing 
for  a  rest  without  a  to-morrow  calling  me  out 
to  the  same  grind.  I  made  up  my  mind  that  the 
only  chance  of  bettering  myself  and  my  family 
lay  in  the  direction  of  my  invention,  so  I  went 
to  live  at  my  father's  house.  He  had  faith  in 
my  venture,  and  for  a  while  under  his  roof  I 
gave  all  my  time  to  the  sewing-machine. ' ' 

*^ Young  Elias  Howe  is  a  clever  workman," 
said  the  neighbors,  shaking  their  heads,  ^*It  is 
a  pity  that  he  spends  his  time  on  queer  inven- 
tions when  he  ought  to  be  getting  steady  em- 
ployment. ' ' 

This  chapter  in  Howe's  life  came  to  a  sudden 
close.  A  fire  destroyed  his  father's  shop  and 
for  a  time  left  the  older  man  without  means  to 
help  his  son.  But  if  trouble  seemed  ever  to  be 
dogging  the  footsteps  of  young  Howe,  Hope 
stood  at  the  turn  of  the  road  to  give  him  cour- 
age. He  found  a  friend  in  need,  a  friend  who 
had  just  come  into  a  tidy  legacy  and  who 
dreamed  of  a  lucky  stroke  that  would  suddenly 
turn  it  into  a  real  fortune. 

94 


I 


ELIAS  HOWE 

**Come  and  live  with  me,''  said  George 
Fisher.  *^Your  family  will  have  a  comfortable 
home  while  you  spend  all  your  time  on  the  sew- 
ing-machine. We  will  form  a  partnership  and 
when  success  comes  we  will  share  the  profits.'' 

*^But  I  must  work  and  save  long  enough  to 
get  money  for  necessary  tools  and  materials 
for  my  model, ' '  protested  Howe. 

*  ^  Turn  to  your  partner ! ' '  said  Fisher.  *  *  Here 
is  five  hundred  dollars  which  I  will  risk  in  the 
cause. ' ' 

After  months  of  work,  when  each  of  the  part- 
ners was  wearing  a  suit  of  clothes  stitched  on 
the  completed  model,  it  seemed  as  if  success 
must  be  at  hand.  But,  behold,  an  unforeseen 
difficulty!  Here  was  the  wonderful  invention 
ready  and  waiting  for  a  world  that  did  not  seem 
to  know  or  care  that  it  stood  in  need  of  just 
what  the  Howe  sewing-machine  could  supply. 

Clothing  manufacturers  shook  their  heads. 
**It  will  cost  us  a  great  deal  of  money  to  make 
a  new  start  with  your  machines,"  they  said. 
*^Why  should  we  do  that  and  perhaps  bring 
down  on  us  riots  from  people  thrown  out  of 

95 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

work,  when  we  are  doing  very  well  just  as  we 
are?'' 

But  Howe  refused  to  take  this  rebuff  seri- 
ously. *'It  may  take  a  little  time/'  he  said, 
'^but  in  the  end  people  can't  help  seeing  that 
what  saves  labor  lengthens  life.  That  is  only 
common  sense." 

The  next  step  was  to  take  out  a  patent. 

*^That  means  a  journey  to  the  Patent  Office," 
said  Howe.  *^But  where  am  I  to  get  the  money 
for  the  fare  to  Washington?  I  cannot  look  to 
Fisher  for  another  loan ;  he  will  rue  the  day  he 
ever  heard  of  me  and  my  sewing-machine." 

**Will  you  man  an  engine  for  a  while?"  he 
was  asked.  **  Another  locomotive  engineer  is 
badly  needed  just  now." 

<<I  ^ui  your  man,"  replied  the  inventor, 
pluckily.  But  more  than  grit  and  gumption  are 
needed  to  run  a  train.  Howe 's  frail  body,  worn 
by  toil  and  hardships,  could  not  stand  the  strain 
of  the  heavy  work  and  the  exposure  to  sudden 
changes  of  heat  and  cold.  Just  in  the  nick  of 
time  Fisher  came  to  the  rescue. 

^^Are  you  mad?"  he  cried.  *'Why,  man,  you 
are  killing  yourself!    There  are  a  few  dollars 

96 


Howe's  Sewing  Machine 


ELIAS  HOWE 

more  where  the  others  came  from  to  take  us 
together  to  Washington.  I  find  you  need 
watching." 

When  at  the  capital,  Howe  seized  the  oppor- 
tunity of  exhibiting  his  rapid  stitcher  at  a  fair, 
where  it  drew  wondering  crowds  who  one  and 
all  admired  but  turned  away  without  even  con- 
sidering the  possibility  of  buying  such  a  ma- 
chine. Fisher's  faith  in  the  venture  was  all  at 
once  dashed  to  the  ground. 

**If  I  could  only  see  a  chance  of  getting  back 
the  two  thousand  dollars  that  I  have  put  into 
your  machine,  I  should  not  ask  for  a  share  in  a 
fortune,"  he  said  gloomily.  Then,  looking  at 
the  worn  face  of  his  friend,  he  added  gener- 
ously, ^*You  have  risked  more  than  I  have." 

Elias  Howe  refused  to  lose  heart,  however. 
* '  The  place  really  to  get  a  start  is  England, ' '  he 
said.  *  ^  Surely  the  large  garment  factories  there 
will  open  their  doors  to  us." 

The  journey  to  England  was  taken  with  high 
hopes  that  made  the  hard  conditions  of  steerage 
travel  seem  as  nothing.  And,  sure  enough,  a 
London  manufacturer,  William  Thomas,  who 
saw  at  a  glance  the  value  of  the  machine  in  his 

97 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

business,  bougM  one  for  $1,217  on  condition 
that  lie  might  patent  the  invention  in  England. 

^^You  can  do  nothing  yourself  on  this  side  of 
the  water,''  he  said.  **It  is  enough  for  you  to 
manage  your  ventures  in  America.  I  will  agree 
to  pay  you  three  pounds  for  every  machine  that 
I  sell.'' 

This  seemed  a  fair  offer  and  Howe  was  indeed 
helpless.  Pressing  debts  must  be  paid  without 
delay.  He  took  Thomas's  promise  in  good 
faith,  and  at  the  same  time  agreed  to  work  for 
three  pounds  a  week  at  the  task  of  making  a 
machine  especially  fitted  for  the  heavy  stitching 
required  in  some  branches  of  the  manufacture. 

When  this  new  stitcher  was  completed 
Thomas  made  no  attempt  to  conceal  his  readi- 
ness to  part  company  with  his  inventor-work- 
man. And  Howe  never  received  a  penny  for 
the  machines  sold  in  England  on  which  Thomas 
was  realizing  a  royalty  of  ten  pounds  each. 

It  is  said  that  the  darkest  hour  is  just  before 
the  dawn.  The  lowest  ebb  of  Howe's  fortunes 
had  now  been  reached.  Perhaps  he  was  saved 
from  despair  by  the  faith  that  a  new  day  was 
about  to  break. 

98 


ELIAS  HOWE 

Pawning  his  precious  first  machine  and  his 
American  patent,  and  pulling  his  forlorn  bag- 
gage on  a  hand-cart  to  the  wharf,  he  took  pas- 
sage in  the  steerage  to  return  to  New  York  and 
the  daily  grind  of  a  machine  workman.  He 
had  scarcely  landed  when  news  reached  him  that 
his  wife  was  dying. 

*' What  good  of  success  now  when  the  one  who 
has  shared  all  my  hardships  cannot  have  a  part 
in  better  days,  even  if  I  winT'  thought  the 
unhappy  inventor. 

Now  it  seemed  as  if  he  must  give  up  the 
struggle.  His  friends  scarcely  recognized  the 
heartbroken,  hopeless  man.  ^*He  has  grown 
old  in  a  single  day!"  they  said.  *'What  a  pity, 
when  good  nature  and  cheer  were  always  his 
way  no  matter  what  trouble  came.  And  there 
isn't  a  better  mechanic  in  America,  if  he  could 
be  persuaded  to  give  up  his  crazy  inventions.'' 

But  just  at  this  time  news  came  that  the 
sewing-qiachine  was  becoming  famous,  and  that 
those  who  had  taken  advantage  of  his  absence 
in  London  to  steal  his  invention  were  about  to 
make  the  fortune  for  which  he  had  labored  in 
vain.    This  wrong  roused  something  of  the  old 

99 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

spirit  in  Ellas  Howe.  Even  such  an  able  oppo- 
nent as  Isaac  Morton  Singer,  whose  name  has 
become  a  household  word  with  the  sewing- 
machines  he  manufactured  and  sold,  found  that 
he  had  more  to  reckon  with  than  at  first  ap- 
peared. Howe  defended  his  case  ably  in  court 
after  court  and  the  justice  of  his  claims  were 
always  fully  and  freely  recognized.  From  the 
f  orlornest  poverty,  with  his  models  and  patents 
pawned  in  a  foreign  land,  he  at  last  rose  above 
every  obstacle  and  won  success. 

The  way  in  which  this  victory  was  made  pos- 
sible by  his  father — who  from  first  to  last  had 
faith  in  him  and  came  to  the  rescue  when  all 
else  failed,  even  mortgaging  his  farm  to  pro- 
vide the  money  for  pushing  the  claims  of  his 
patents — ^is  a  beautiful  and  inspiring  story. 

The  success  of  the  sewing-machine  owed  much 
to  the  business  ability  and  shrewd  advertising 
of  Singer,  who  had  been  an  actor  and  theatrical 
manager  and  knew  how  to  employ  to  the  utmost 
the  devices  of  lime-light  and  bill-board  in  his 
big  venture.  **For  success  you  need  not  only  a 
live  idea  but  an  alert  promoter, ' '  he  said.  *  ^  The 
people  will  not  go  after  a  new  thing;  it  must  go 

100 


ELIAS  HOWE 

after  them/'  He  organized  the  business  on 
sound  and  permanent  lines,  and  he  was  quick 
to  see  and  apply  new  inventions  that  would  add 
to  the  effectiveness  of  the  machine.  The 
treadle,  in  place  of  a  wheel  turned  by  hand,  and 
a  needle  moving  up  and  down  instead  of  side- 
ways were  improvements  made  by  Singer. 

Howe  was  during  his  last  years  a  rich  man, 
and  happy  in  seeing  his  wealth  a  source  of 
happiness  and  comfort  not  only  to  his  family 
and  friends  but  to  many  others.  The  thought  of 
the  lightened  toil  in  households  everywhere,  due 
to  his  labors,  always  made  his  eyes  kindle  and 
a  glow  transfigure  the  worn  lines  of  his  face. 
^'It  would  have  been  worth  all  the  years  of 
struggle  even  if  I  had  not  lived  to  taste  suc- 
cess," he  said. 

One  of  his  chief  rewards  was  the  thought  of 
his  machines  working  without  rest  day  and 
night  on  the  uniforms,  shoes,  tents,  knapsacks 
and  cartridge-boxes  for  the  Union  soldiers  dur- 
ing the  Civil  War.  Many  car-loads  of  sand- 
bags for  their  defense  were  also  rushed  to  the 
front  with  a  despatch  that,  but  for  Howe's 
invention,  would  have  been  unthinkable. 

101 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

''You  have  served  your  country  more  than 
you  could  have  done  if  you  had  been  a  regi- 
ment in  the  field!''  protested  a  friend  when 
Howe  talked  of  enlisting. 

This  seemed  to  put  a  new  idea  into  the  in- 
ventor's mind.  Through  his  energy  and  in- 
fluence he  mustered  the  Seventeenth  Regiment 
of  Connecticut  Volunteers  and  he  provided  all 
the  officers  with  horses. 

''You  must  go  as  our  colonel,"  the  men  voted. 

^^I  am  grateful  for  the  honor  and  for  your 
confidence,"  Howe  replied,  "but  I  should  not 
be  worthy  of  either  if  I  did  not  know  my  limita- 
tions well  enough  to  decline.  I  shall,  however, 
go  with  you  in  the  ranks." 

Despite  lameness  and  failing  health,  Private 
Howe  served  some  weeks  as  regimental  post- 
master, riding  from  the  camp  near  Baltimore 
back  and  forth  to  the  city  every  day  with  mail- 
bags  which  seemed  doubly  his  charge  because 
they  had  been  stitched  on  one  of  his  own 
machines. 

But  the  inventor 's  health  did  not  permit  him 
to  see  active  service  for  long.  He  lived,  indeed, 
only  a  few  years  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  hard- 

102 


ELIAS  HOWE 

won  success.  He  died  in  1867,  at  the  early  age 
of  forty-eight,  leaving  to  others  the  opportunity 
and  the  credit  of  carrying  to  completion  the 
improvements  on  his  machine  which  he  had 
dreamed  of  making. 

^'I  used  to  see  him  often  going  about  the 
house  with  a  shuttle  in  his  hand,^'  said  his 
daughter.  *^He  never  gave  up  trying  to  turn 
his  ideas  to  good  account." 

For  Elias  knew  that  true  success  lies  not  in 
the  reward  at  the  end  of  the  journey  but  in  the 
spirit  that,  having  traveled  hopefully,  looks 
ever  on  to  some  new  goal  of  effort.  And  if  one 
eould  have  put  into  words  the  message  of  his 
last  days,  I  think  it  would  have  been  this : 

^^I  have  worked  much;  I  have  won  much. 
Now  I  am  content  to  leave  the  struggle  and  the 
reward  to  those  who  will  go  on  with  my  work. 
For  no  one  lives  or  dies  to  himself,  and  even 
when  we  realize  it  least,  we  are  all  workers  and 
sharers  together.'' 


103 


THE  DAY  OF  RUBBER 


It  is  often  repeated  that  "necessity  is  the  mother  of  in- 
vention." It  may  with  equal  truth  be  said  that  inventors 
are  the  children  of  misfortune  and  want.  Probably  no 
class  of  the  community,  in  any  country,  receive  a  smaller 
compensation  for  their  labors  than  do  inventors.  .  .  .  There 
is,  however,  this  consolation, — success  has  crowned  their 
attempt,  and  they  leave  the  world  better  off  for  having  lived 
in  it. 

Charles  Goodyear. 


THE    DAY    OF    EUBBEE 

IT  has  been  said  that  he  who  makes  a  tool 
adds  to  man's  life.  Then  what  of  the  gift 
of  a  new  substance  like  vulcanized  rubber,  and 
all  the  many  helps  to  fuller  life  that  it  has  made 
possible? 

Think  of  the  changes  that  rubber  alone  has 
brought  to  modern  life.  The  white  man's  world 
first  knew  it  in  1770,  when  the  discovery  was 
made  that  the  gum  from  the  tears  of  Brazil's 
caoutchouc  (^^ weeping  wood")  trees  would  rub 
out  pencil  marks.  So  it  earned  the  name  by 
which  it  has  ever  since  been  known, — rubber. 

Travelers  from  the  land  of  rubber  exhibited 
curious  native-made  shoes  of  what  seemed  a 
magic  waterproof  quality.  Then  an  English- 
man named  Mackintosh  invented  a  process  of 
waterproofing  cloth  by  working  a  solution  of 
rubber  into  the  warp  and  woof  of  certain  fab- 
rics.   But  his  *  ^mackintoshes ' '  fell  into  disfavor 

107 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

because  they  took  on  a  stubborn  hardness  in 
winter  and  became  unpleasantly  sticky  in  the 
heat  of  summer. 

Then  came  a  man  who  despite  every  dif- 
ficulty and  discouragement  rescued  rubber  for 
the  use  of  man.  After  years  of  patient  experi- 
mentation he  arrived  at  the  process  that  we 
know  as  vulcanization.  It  was  this  inventor, 
Charles  Goodyear,  who  ushered  in  ^*the  day  of 
rubber,''  which  a  writer  in  London  ^^ Punch'' 
celebrates  in  the  following  lines : 

For  centuries  a  tropic  plant, 

Obscure  and  insignificant, 

Common  to  both  worlds,  West  and  East, 

I  did  no  good  to  man  or  beast. 

Yet  now  my  rich  and  viscous  juice. 

Turned  to  a  locomotive  use, 

Has  lent  the  rigid  chariot  wheel 

The  limber  movements  of  the  eel. 

And  oils  that  kindle  and  explode 

Have  made  me  Monarch  of  the  Road. 

Think  of  the  various  roles  that  rubber  plays 
in  the  affairs  of  men.  You  want  its  elastic 
quality:  here  are  hundreds  of  articles  of  daily 
use  from  rubber  bands  to  automobile  tires. 
You  are  looking  for  protection  from  wet 
weather:  here  are  boots,  coats,  and  tarpaulins 

108 


THE  DAY  OF  RUBBER 

at  your  service.  Again,  wlien  you  want  an  air- 
tight substance  to  make  fast  the  covers  of  fruit- 
jars,  or  one  that  is  a  non-conductor  of  electricity 
with  which  to  insulate  wires,  rubber  meets  the 
need. 

The  vital  importance  of  rubber  to  the  world 
to-day  was  shown  during  the  war,  when  the 
most  desperate  means  were  taken  to  smuggle 
small  quantities  past  the  British  blockade  into 
Germany  and  German  citizens  were  punished 
for  throwing  away  articles  made  of  the  pre- 
cious substance.  And  it  will  be  remembered 
that  when  the  first  merchant  submarine  re- 
turned from  its  spectacular  trip  across  the  At- 
lantic it  carried  a  cargo  of  rubber. 

We  do  indeed  live  in  a  rubber  age.  *'As  the 
use  of  animal  skins  for  shoes  paved  the  world 
with  leather,  so  the  inventor  of  pneumatic  tires 
and  rubber  soles  and  heels  has  cushioned  the 
world  with  rubber. '' 


109 


A    KNiaHT-EERANT    OF    INVENTION 

Charles  Goodyear  (1800-1860) 

CHARLES  GOODYEAR  had  finished  his 
arithmetic  while  the  others  of  his  class 
were  still,  with  knit  brows  or  screwed-up  faces, 
wrestling  with  the  problems  of  the  day.  He  was 
idly  playing  with  a  problem  of  his  own  making, 
— a  problem  bonnd  up  in  a  small  lump  of  India 
rubber. 

^*It  's  strange  stuff,  when  you  stop  to  think 
about  it,''  he  said  to  himself.  ^'How  can  it  be 
so  tough  and  so  stretchy  at  the  same  time?" 
Then  he  began  to  finger  a  thin  scale  of  the  same 
puzzling  substance  that  had  been  peeled  from 
a  bottle.  ^'I  think  it  might  make  first-rate 
aprons  and  other  useful  things  if  one  could  roll 
it  out  in  the  right  way  and  keep  it  somehow 
from  melting  and  sticking  together,"  he 
haaarded. 

110 


CHARLES  GOODYEAE 

When  the  boy's  class  was  called,  he  rose 
promptly  to  his  task ;  but  the  idea  that  the  bit  of 
rubber  had  brought  remained  with  him  after 
the  affairs  of  school  and  sums  were  forgotten. 

He  was  a  quick,  studious  lad,  this  Charles 
Goodyear.  It  seemed  as  if  the  mysteries  of 
books  had  no  terrors  for  him.  Printed  pages 
that  looked  strange  and  forbidding  to  many 
others  talked  quite  simply  to  Charles.  **He 
should  be  a  minister,''  the  neighbors  agreed. 

For  a  while  the  boy  accepted  it  as  settled  that 
he  should  one  day  wear  the  black  suit  and  the 
serious  look  of  a  devoted  pastor,  like  the  leader 
of  their  church  at  Naugatuck.  To  this  little 
village,  eighteen  miles  from  New  Haven,  Mr. 
Goodyear  had  removed  when  Charles  was  a 
very  young  lad,  to  make  use,  in  his  business,  of 
the  water-power  of  the  swift  river. 

An  American  manufacturer  in  the  early  days 
of  the  nineteenth  century  was  a  real  pioneer. 
Amasa  Goodyear  made  buttons — the  first  pearl 
ones  in  America, — and  during  the  War  of  1812 
supplied  the  Government  with  metal  buttons. 
He  also  made  clocks,  spoons,  and  farming-tools. 

**An  incident  of  my  boyhood  which  made  a 
111 


,K¥ 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

deep  impression  on  my  mind,"  said  Charles 
Goodyear,  **was  my  father's  experience  with 
hay-forks.  He  succeeded  in  making  a  light, 
springy  implement  of  steel,  a  great  improve- 
ment on  the  heavy  iron  articles  then  in  nse. 
But  it  was  soon  apparent  that  the  very  excel- 
lence of  these  forks  caused  them  to  be  looked 
on  with  suspicion  by  the  people  who  were  to 
profit  by  them.  They  were  so  different;  they 
could  not  be  practical  and  durable,  it  was  ob- 
jected. We  had  to  give  some  of  our  product  to 
neighboring  farmers  and  beg  them  to  grant  us 
a  trial  in  order  to  get  a  single  one  of  our  articles 
in  use.  I  saw  then  that  in  business  a  man 
needed  the  resolution  of  the  pioneer  backed  by 
the  determination  to  do  good  to  people  in  spite 
of  themselves.'' 

When  Charles  was  a  lad  of  fifteen  he  gave  up 
the  idea  of  being  a  minister.  He  saw  that  his 
father  was  not  able  to  send  him  to  college,  in- 
deed, that  he  could  ill  spare  his  help  in  his 
business.  ^'Besides,  it  may  be  that  the  hard- 
ware trade  needs  men  who  want  to  make  the 
world  better  even  more  than  churches  do,"  he 
thought.     Perhaps  something  of  the  pioneer 

112 


'^^  .. 


V         ■      J»  .J>lG,'if, 


^V 


^> 


^1!^^ 


« 


Courtesy  of  The  Mentor 


Charles  Goodyear 


CHAELES  GOODYEAE 

spirit  of  the  boy^s  ancestor,  Stephen  Goodyear 
(who  was,  after  Governor  Eaton,  the  chosen 
leader  of  the  first  settlers  of  New  Haven)  made 
him  long  to  blaze  a  new  trail. 

*^I  think  that  my  place  is  in  the  world  of  busi- 
ness after  all,^'  he  said  when  people  asked  why 
he  had  given  up  the  idea  of  college.  ^  ^  I  like  to 
work  with  hands  and  head  together." 

At  seventeen  he  went  to  Philadelphia,  where 
he  served  for  four  years  as  apprentice  to  a 
hardware  merchant,  endeavoring  to  master 
every  phase  of  the  trade.  Then  he  returned  to 
his  father's  shop.  He  soon  showed  a  wonder- 
ful skill  in  the  use  of  tools  and  a  cleverness  in 
contriving  ways  of  improving  the  various 
implements  turned  out  by  the  Goodyear 
manufactory. 

^  ^  His  gift  was  in  the  way  of  mechanics,  after 
all,"  people  said. 

But  Charles  knew  better.  * '  I  have  no  natural 
knack  that  way,"  he  explained  to  one  of  his 
friends.  ^*In  fact,  I  even  hate  the  whirr  and 
whirl  of  machinery.  But  I  long  to  make  poor, 
clumsy  things  better.  They  seem  to  cry  out  to 
be  improved.    I  should  want  to  do  it  even  if  I 

113 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

did  not  have  to  earn  a  living.  It  should  be  pos- 
sible for  a  business  man  to  show  that  he  cares 
for  something  more  than  the  money  that  comes 
in  and  to  live  according  to  a  better  maxim  than 
that  which  says : '  Things  should  be  made  so  that 
they  will  not  last  too  long. '  ' ' 

When  Goodyear  was  twenty-four  years  old  he 
married  and  two  years  later  set  up  in  Phila- 
delphia a  hardware  store  stocked  with  goods 
from  his  father's  workshop.  After  he  had  suc- 
ceeded, despite  the  general  prejudice  against 
American-made  articles,  in  building  up  a  trade 
that  reached  to  many  sections  of  the  country, 
his  business  failed  because  his  kindly,  trusting 
nature  led  him  into  giving  credit  wherever  it 
was  asked.  Money  was  slow  in  coming  in  and 
some  dealers  who  had  taken  his  goods  and  his 
credit  never  met  their  bills.  There  came  dark 
days  when  Goodyear,  who  assumed  full  respon- 
sibility for  his  firm,  was  put  in  prison  for  debt. 
Never  for  a  moment  losing  heart,  however,  he 
had  his  bench  brought  to  the  jail  and  worked 
there  to  complete  inventions  that  he  was  sure 
would  be  the  means  of  repaying  all  his  creditors 
as  well  as  meeting  the  needs  of  his  family. 

114 


CHAELES  GOODYEAE 

^^It  must  have  been  a  bitter  experience  to  go 
under  through  no  fault  of  yours,"  Goodyear 's 
friends  said,  ^^and  to  see  others  who  had  more 
capital  to  weather  the  days  of  bad  debts  reap  a 
harvest  out  of  the  business  you  had  built  up  and 
the  goods  of  your  own  making.'' 

'^Well,"  Goodyear  replied,  with  his  slow, 
thoughtful  smile,  ^^I  don't  think  you  can  prove 
the  worth  of  a  man — or  of  his  career — in  dollars 
and  cents.  I  am  not  disposed  to  grieve  because 
others  have  gathered  the  fruits  of  my  planting. 
Man  has  real  cause  for  regret  when  he  sows  and 
no  one  reaps." 

For  ten  years  Charles  Goodyear  was  con- 
stantly besieged  by  the  demands  of  those  who 
held  claims  against  Eis  business,  and  through 
the  harsh  laws  of  the  time  he  was  again  and 
again  imprisoned,  since  he  refused  to  declare 
himself  bankrupt.  This  would  have  meant  free- 
dom from  all  claims,  but  at  the  cost  of  turning 
over  all  that  remained  of  his  business,  including 
his  unfinished  inventions. 

^^And  I  did  not  want  to  be  released  from  any- 
thing; I  only  asked  the  chance  to  pay  to  the  last 
penny,"  Goodyear  mourned.     ^*But  it  is  cer- 

115 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

tain  that  if  one^s  conscience  is  clear  and 
his  purpose  trne  he  can  find  that  even  an 
experience  such  as  mine  is  not  without  its  silver 
lining.  For  I  know  that  it  is  possible  to 
find  happiness  everywhere,  even  within  prison 
walls. '  ^ 

Later,  Goodyear  must  have  more  fully  appre- 
ciated that  the  trouble  which  made  him  yield 
first  and  last  all  the  rewards  of  his  agricultural 
inventions  to  others  was  a  blessing  in  disguise, 
since  because  of  it  he  turned  his  efforts  into  an 
entirely  new  channel  where  lay  his  real  life- 
work. 

One  day  while  looking  about  a  New  York 
wareroom  containing  rubber  goods,  he  chanced 
to  observe  that  the  life-preservers  were  defec- 
tive, and,  returning  a  few  days  later,  he  offered 
the  merchant  an  improved  tube  for  inflating 
them. 

*^You  are  a  clever  inventor,"  declared  the 
gratified  merchant.  **Now,  if  you  could  only 
manage  to  hit  on  some  way  to  prevent  rubber 
from  spoiling  in  hot  weather  you  might  make  a 
fortune  for  yourself  and  at  the  same  time  save 
our  factories  from  failure.    We  have  risked  all 

116 


CHAELES  GOODYEAE 

our  capital  in  this  business  and  unless  help 
comes  we  must  go  to  the  wall.'' 

Charles  Goodyear  looked  at  the  man  in  amaze- 
ment. It  seemed  impossible  that  they  should 
have  gone  so  far  without  first  having  overcome 
that  difficulty.  In  a  flash  he  remembered  how 
<as  a  boy  at  school  he  had  marveled  over  the 
wonderful  properties  of  rubber.  Now  he  said 
to  himself,  ^^  Perhaps  it  remains  for  me  to  make 
this  discovery  that  will  bring  to  the  world  a  new 
gift.  It  is  true  that  I  am  ignorant  of  science, 
but  new  truth  is  often  hidden  from  the  learned 
and  made  known  as  if  by  accident  to  the  one 
who  perseveres  and  who  observes  everything  re- 
lated to  the  object  of  his  search." 

Soon  Goodyear  was  so  intent  upon  the  quest 
that  he  could  think  of  nothing  but  rubber.  It 
was  as  if  upon  learning  the  secret  of  tanning 
or  curing  this  substance  so  that  it  might  be 
unchanged  by  changes  of  heat  and  cold  de- 
pended not  only  his  fortune  but  life  itself. 

He  knew  that  Americans  began  to  import 
gum  elastic  from  Brazil  in  1820,  when  he  was 
learning  the  hardware  business  in  Philadelphia. 
Crudely  formed  shoes,  also  brought  from  South 

117 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

America,  sold  for  a  good  price  because  of  their 
waterproof  character.  It  seemed  natural  to 
believe  that  clever  Yankees  might  succeed  at 
this  craft  better  than  the  dusky  natives  of  the 
land  of  rubber  trees  and  reap  a  goodly  har- 
vest. Much  capital  was  put  into  the  busi- 
ness. Beautifully  fashioned  shoes,  coats,  and 
other  articles  were  made  of  the  unmanufactured 
gum  which,  having  been  brought  as  ballast  in 
ships  from  Brazil,  was  obtained  at  a  small  cost. 
A  ready  market  was  found  for  these  attractive 
products  and  more  capital  was  invested. 

But  alas,  the  cold  clutch  of  winter  put  the 
American-made  rubber  garments  to  an  unfore- 
seen test.  In  a  speech  which  Daniel  Webster 
made  some  years  later,  defending  Goodyear  ^s 
title  to  the  invention  which  made  rubber  serv- 
iceable to  man,  he  said :  ^  ^  I  well  remember  that  I 
had  some  experience  in  this  matter  myself.  A 
friend  in  New  York  sent  me  a  very  fine  cloak  of 
India-rubber,  and  a  hat  of  the  same  material. 
I  did  not  succeed  very  well  with  them.  I  took 
the  cloak  one  day  and  set  it  out  in  the  cold.  It 
stood  very  well  by  itself.  I  surmounted  it  with 
the  hat,  and  many  persons  passing  by  supposed 

118 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR 

they  saw  standing  by  the  porch  the  Farmer  of 
Marshfield. ' ' 

With  warm  weather  there  came  an  even  more 
crushing  blow  to  the  dealers  in  the  new  rubber 
goods.  Their  interesting  articles  began  to  melt 
away,  and  with  them  the  capital  and  the  credit 
of  the  Roxbury  Rubber  Company. 

Goodyear 's  sympathy  and  zeal  were  both 
'enlisted  in  the  cause.  He  knew  the  wrongs  and 
the  bitterness  of  business  failure  where  the  for- 
tunes of  the  innocent  and  helpless  are  often 
wrecked  through  the  fault  or  the  misfortune  of 
others.  Besides,  it  seemed  to  him  clear  that 
human  beings  stood  in  need  of  just  what  this 
puzzling  new  substance  could  supply.  There- 
fore it  remained  for  some  one  to  remove  the 
difficulties  that  stood  in  the  way  of  its  use.  And 
he  was  persuaded  that  Charles  Goodyear  was 
the  man  chosen  for  this  task.  Here  was  his 
opportunity  and  his  real  mission.  As  a  knight 
of  old  he  accepted  the  challenge  of  fate  and  set 
forth  to  win  rubber  for  the  use  of  man.  With 
the  determination  and  the  ardor  of  a  crusader 
he  set  about  his  life-work. 

He  began  without  equipment,  mixing  some  of 
119 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

tlie  gum  elastic  by  hand  and  pressing  it  out  in 
thin  sheets  with  his  wife's  rolling-pin  on  a  back- 
ing of  flannel.  Of  this  rubber-covered  goods  he 
made  shoes,  and  set  them  in  a  row  to  wait  for  a 
change  of  season. 

*^My  work  always  proceeded  slowly  because 
perforce  I  must  often  wait  months  for  the  frosts 
of  winter  and  then  for  the  heat  of  summer  to 
put  its  worth  to  the  trial, ' '  Goodyear  explained. 
**I  had  indeed  to  4earn  to  labor — and  to  waitM'' 

It  occurred  to  Goodyear  that  the  stickiness  of 
the  rubber  might  be  due  to  the  turpentine  with 
which  it  had  been  mixed;  and,  learning  that 
,there  were  on  the  market  some  casks  of  rubber 
sap  diluted  with  alcohol,  he  resolved  to  put  the 
matter  to  the  test.  Perhaps  of  this  he  could 
make  the  rubber  that  should  answer  his 
purpose. 

Jerry,  the  lively  Irishman  who  was  at  this 
time  Mr.  Goodyear 's  helper,  knew  of  the  in- 
ventor's hope.  ^'  'T  would  be  fun  to  give  him.  a 
surprise  like,  and  bring  a  smile  to  his  counte- 
nance!" said  Jerry  to  himself.  So  the  night 
the  new  rubber  arrived  he  spread  the  liquid 
gum  over  his  work-trousers  as  he  had  seen  Mr. 

120 


GHAELES  GOODYEAE 

Goodyear  cover  his  pieces  of  cambric  and  flan- 
nel.   The  result  seemed  highly  satisfactory. 

**That^s  the  thrick!''  said  Jerry,  gleefully. 
**I  '11  show  that  an  Irishman  can  beat  a  Yankee 
at  the  inventing.'' 

All  went  well.  The  rubber  gave  a  fine  glazed 
surface  to  the  overalls,  and  Jerry  sat  down 
complacently  in  front  of  the  fire  to  go  on  with 
his  appointed  task  of  mixing  the  gum ;  but  when 
he  attempted  to  rise  he  found  it  was  impossible 
even  to  move.  The  legs  of  his  trousers  were 
stuck  firmly  together,  and  Jerry  himself  was 
fastened  down  to  his  work-bench.  The  inventor 
did  indeed  smile  when  he  came  to  the  rescue 
and  cut  his  helper  free  of  the  rubber  trap. 

**Well,  Jerry,  you  Ve  proved  beyond  doubt 
that  we  can't  blame  our  troubles  on  the  turpen- 
tine," he  said.  **The  rubber  's  the  real  rogue, 
and  I  '11  not  rest  till  I  bring  it  to  terms." 

But  this  dramatic  display  of  the  stickiness  of 
rubber  completely  discouraged  Goodyear 's 
friends.  They  refused  to  help  or  encourage  him 
further  with  his  experiments.  *^Any  sane  man 
should  see  now  that  it's  no  use,"  they  said. 

But  Goodyear  found  a  little  home  for  his 
121 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

family  in  a  neighboring  village  and  the  means 
of  paying  its  rent  from  the  sale  of  his  furniture. 
To  further  the  work  his  wife  even  sold  the  pre- 
cious linen  that  she  had  spun  by  hand  in  her 
girlhood  days. 

**If  only,  like  the  girl  in  the  fairy  tale,  I  could 
learn  the  trick  of  spinning  gold ! ' '  she  said,  smil- 
ing bravely. 

^^Fate  will  spin  a  golden  thread  for  many 
perhaps,  because  of  what  we  are  willing  to  do 
— and  to  do  without,  for  a  while  now,  ^ '  replied 
Goodyear. 

But  many  trials  and  much  discouragement 
had  to  be  met  and  mastered  before  the  golden 
fortune  came. 

A  series  of  tests  were  made  with  various 
chemicals.  One  day  Goodyear 's  hopes  were 
raised  by  the  discovery  that  when  the  gum 
elastic  and  magnesia  were  boiled  in  lime-water 
the  stickiness  disappeared.  But  alas,  he  saw 
that  a  dash  of  acid  quickly  ate  away  the  lime 
coating,  revealing  the  same  melting  rubber  be- 
neath, and  he  knew  that  the  remedy  was  still  to 
be  sought.  Then  the  day  came  when  he  noticed 
that  where  a  little  nitric  acid  had  come  in  con- 

122 


CHAELES  GOODYEAR 

tact  with  his  rubber  the  stickiness  was  gone. 
*^  Perhaps  this  is  my  chance, — ^my  door  of  op- 
portunity if  I  can  learn  to  fit  the  key, ' '  he  said. 
Eagerly  he  followed  up  the  hint  with  experi- 
ments, and  developed  the  acid-gas  process  of 
treating  rubber,  from  which  he  now  made  table- 
covers,  aprons,  and  similar  articles. 

These  were  satisfactory  in  every  way,  and  it 
seemed  that  success  was  at  last  his.  A  manu- 
facturer agreed  to  take  him  into  partnership 
and  begin  making  the  rubber  articles  on  a  large 
scale.  But  then — once  more  Fortune  turned  her 
wheel  and  Goodyear  was  again  down  and  with- 
out the  means  to  provide  food  for  his  family. 
For  a  great  panic  came;  many  banks  closed 
their  doors  and  many  businesses  were  wrecked. 
Among  those  who  failed  was  the  manufacturer 
who  had  undertaken  to  turn  out  the  rubber 
articles  by  the  acid-gas  process. 

Afterward  Goodyear  said :  ^^It  was  in  the  end 
easy  to  understand.  I  was  not  to  be  allowed  to 
pause  in  my  labors  until  I  had  arrived  at  the 
goal  and  learned  the  secret  of  vulcanization. 
Under  the  spur  of  necessity  I  kept  on  until  a 
new  gift  was  won.'' 

123 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

It  was  indeed  a  sharp  goad,  the  necessity  that 
urged  Goodyear  to  even  greater  effort.  One 
day  he  was  forced  to  pawn  his  umbrella  to 
the  ferryman  in  order  to  pay  his  fare  across  the 
river  to  New  York.  ^'I  'm  used  to  facing  what 
comes  in  the  way  of  weather/'  he  remarked 
cheerily.  He  even  smiled  when  he  took  his 
most  precious  keepsakes  to  the  pawnshop. 

*  ^  I  never  doubted, ' '  he  once  said,  *  ^  that  I  was 
the  one  chosen  to  do  a  needed  work,  and  I  could 
not  turn  back.  So  how  could  I  doubt  that  I 
must  one  day  reach  the  goalT' 

The  days  were  not  long  enough  for  his  work ; 
he  carried  on  his  experiments  far  into  the 
night.  Never  was  there  a  man  more  single- 
minded  in  his  devotion  to  a  cause.  In  order  to 
test  the  qualities  of  his  products  he  even  went 
about  dressed  in  rubber. 

People  called  him  a  crank.  **If  you  meet  a 
man  who  has  on  an  India-rubber  cap,  stock,  coat, 
vest,  and  shoes,  with  an  India  rubber  money 
purse  mthout  a  cent  of  money  in  it,  it  is  he," 
a  man  once  said  when  he  was  asked  to  point 
out  Mr.  Goodyear. 

In  those  days,  when  anybody  wanted  to  say 
124 


CHAELES  GOODYEAR 

that  an  investment  was  worthless,  he  didn't 
say,  **It  's  a  wildcat  scheme,'*  or  ^* Something 
will  soon  prick  that  bubble'';  he  said  ^*It  's  an 
India-rubber  venture ! ' '  And  if  you  could  have 
seen  the  deserted  rubber  factories  bearing  dis- 
mal witness  to  wrecked  fortunes  you  might  have 
understood. 

To  the  abandoned  plant  of  the  Eagle  Rubber 
Company,  Goodyear  went.  Perhaps  he  might 
persuade  some  one  to  set  the  wheels  moving 
again  when  he  brought  the  result  of  his  experi- 
ments to  the  business.  But  no  one  could  be  in- 
duced '^to  send  any  more  good  money  after 
bad. ' '  The  pilgrimage  was  not,  however,  fruit- 
less ;  for  he  found  there  a  Nathaniel  Hayward, 
at  one  time  foreman  of  the  works,  who  was  mak- 
ing a  few  rubber  articles  for  sale  in  a  small 
way.  Goodyear  was  at  once  interested  in  the 
process  of  ^^ curing"  the  rubber  that  Hayward 
employed.  He  mixed  the  gum  elastic  with  sul- 
phur and  then  gave  it  a  sun-bath  with  good  re- 
sult. 

*'I  was  told  in  a  dream  that  sun  and  sulphur 
would  do  the  work,"  he  declared.  **The  plan 
works  and  I  've  taken  out  a  patent." 

125 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

^^If  I  could  patent  a  few  of  my  dreams,  I 
should  not  be  afraid  of  want/'  said  Goodyear 
smiling,  ^^but  I  will  agree  to  pay  you  for  yours 
when  I  put  on  sale  some  goods  made  in  the  sun 
and  sulphur  way." 

This  was  the  first  step  toward  vulcanization. 
The  process  worked  well  for  goods  that  had  only 
a  thin  surface  to  be  treated;  but,  as  Goodyear 
learned  to  his  sorrow,  the  dream  patent  didn't 
go  deep  enough.  Once  more  he  went  ahead 
confidently  to  meet  success.  Once  more  Fortune 
turned  her  wheel,  and  he  found  himself  again  in 
the  depths  of  want, — ^but  not  of  despair.  There 
was  one  more  vital  lesson  to  be  learned  and 
necessity  pitilessly  urged  him  on. 

He  took  a  contract  from  the  Government  to 
supply  mail-bags  of  the  new  material.  They 
were  beautifully  formed  and  colored  cleverly  to 
imitate  leather.  What  a  good  advertisement 
they  would  prove !  Surely  his  fortune  and  that 
of  the  despised  rubber  goods  would  now  be  es- 
tablished on  a  firm  foundation !  The  bags  were 
put  on  exhibition  and  much  admired.  But  alas ! 
they  could  not  hold  their  own  against  the  heat 

126 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR 

of  summer.  Goodyear  saw  that  the  battle  was 
not  yet  won. 

'  ^  How  can  you  still  keep  on  with  that  forlorn 
hopef  people  asked.  ^'It  is  madness  to  per- 
sist further  in  the  face  of  the  needs  of  your  fam- 
ily. Go  back  to  the  hardware  business  and  the 
work  of  making  a  decent  living. ' ' 

^^I  have  more  than  hope,''  replied  Goodyear. 
' '  I  have  faith  that  my  work  is  not  in  vain.  The 
long  road  must  have  an  ending;  and  rest  and 
reward  belongs  to  the  one  who  presses  on  to 
the  end.  It  is  clear  that  the  world  needs  rubber ; 
my  work  must  meet  that  need. ' ' 

The  story  of  the  hardships  Goodyear  endured 
is  one  of  the  saddest  that  can  be  imagined,  and 
yet  this  knight-errant  of  invention  was  not  sad, 
because  he  never  doubted  that  good  would  re- 
sult, and  for  its  sake  he  was  willing  to  meet 
whatever  came.  It  was  as  if  he  said  to  good 
fortune  and  to  ill,  ^^  There  is  something  in  the 
spirit  of  man  that  your  favors  cannot  bribe  or 
your  frowns  betray ! ' ' 

Then  one  evening,  when  he  was  sitting  with 
his  family  in  the  kitchen,  trying  the  effect  of 
heat  on  the  rubber  which  he  had  mixed  with  sul- 

127 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

phur,  he  threw  out  his  hand  to  add  emphasis  to 
a  remark  and  suddenly  brought  his  specimen  in 
contact  with  the  red-hot  stove.  And  something 
amazing  happened!  In  a  moment  he  had  for- 
gotten what  he  was  saying,  forgotten  where  he 
was  and  those  about  him.  It  was  as  if  he  were 
alone  in  the  world  with  that  little  piece  of  rub- 
ber, which  instead  of  melting  had  strangely 
hardened.  The  stickiness  was  quite  gone.  How 
utterly  astounding,  when  the  one  sure  thing  had 
seemed  to  be  that  a  high  temperature  would  melt 
rubber !  Was  it  possible  that  this  was  true  only 
up  to  a  certain  degree,  and  that  an  intense  heat 
would  cure  the  trouble  that  less  heat  caused? 

His  daughter  in  describing  this  great  moment 
said,  '*As  I  was  passing  in  and  out  of  the  room, 
I  casually  observed  the  little  piece  of  gum  which 
he  was  holding  near  the  fire,  and  I  noticed  that 
he  was  unusually  animated  by  some  discovery 
which  he  had  made.  He  nailed  the  piece  of  gum 
outside  the  kitchen  door  in  the  intense  cold.  In 
the  morning  he  brought  it  in,  holding  it  up  ex- 
ultingly.  He  had  found  it  perfectly  flexible,  as 
it  was  when  he  put  it  out.  This  was  proof 
enough  of  the  value  of  his  discovery/' 

128 


CHARLES  GOODYEAR 

The  discovery  came  early  in  the  year  1839. 
Patiently  the  inventor  set  to  work  with  new 
tests  to  try  the  effect  of  acids  as  well  as  of 
varying  degrees  of  heat  and  cold  on  his  new  sub- 
stance. The  exact  temperature  which  gave  the 
best  result  must  also  be  carefully  determined. 
He  worked  on  in  the  face  of  the  blank  indiffer- 
ence and  unbelief  of  all  about  him,  who  could 
not  conceive  of  any  good  coming  from  this 
rubber  that  had  wrecked  a  good  man's  life  and 
addled  his  brains.  ' '  But  as  for  me, ' '  said  Good- 
year, ^'I  felt  myself  amply  repaid  for  the  past, 
and  quite  indifferent  as  to  the  trials  of  the  fu- 
ture. ' ' 

For  he  knew  that  at  last  success  had  crowned 
his  efforts  and  that  through  his  labors  a  new 
gift  had  been  won  for  mankind, — the  fifth  neces- 
sity of  life,  it  is  sometimes  called  to-day.  The 
new  process  was  called  vulcanization,  for  it 
seemed  that  the  spirit  of  Vulcan's  forge  was 
indeed  at  work  in  the  magic  change. 

The  greater  part  of  the  money  which  his 
patent  brought  him  was  used  in  making  experi- 
ments. 

*^  Why  bother  to  test  novelties  when  there  are 
129 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

things  tried  and  proved  that  yield  profits  T'  he 
was  asked. 

*  *  If  I  had  been  working  first  and  last  for  prof- 
its, I  should  never  have  made  my  discovery," 
said  Goodyear.  ^^  Money  is  indispensable  for 
the  perfecting  of  improvements,  but  it  is  trial 
and  necessity  that  bring  hidden  things  to  light. 
As  I  pushed  on  through  the  days  of  want  to  my 
invention,  so  I  shall  continue  through  the  days 
of  plenty  to  put  it  to  the  test  in  different  ways.'' 

Mr.  Parton  in  his  sketch  of  the  inventor  says :  His  friends 
smiled  at  his  zeal  or  reproached  him  for  it. 

It  has  only  been  since  the  mighty  growth  of  the  business 
that  they  have  acknowledged  that  he  was  right,  and  that 
they  were  wrong.  They  remember  him,  sick  and  wasted, 
now  coming  to  them  with  a  walking-stick  of  India  rubber, 
exulting  in  the  new  application  of  his  material,  and  pre- 
dicting its  general  use,  while  they  objected  that  it  had  cost 
him  fifty  dollars ;  now  shutting  himself  up  for  months  trying 
to  make  a  sail  of  rubber  fabric,  impervious  to  water,  that 
should  never  freeze,  and  to  which  no  sleet  or  ice  should 
ever  cling.  There  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  invention 
more  remarkable  than  the  devotion  of  this  man  to  his 
object. 

So  to  the  last  through  the  week-day  of  a  life  of 
struggle,  Charles  Goodyear  devoted  himself  to 
his  cause.     On  Sunday  morning,  July  1,  1860, 

130      . 


CHARLES  GOODYEAE 

when  the  bells  were  ringing  for  church,  this 
loyal  soldier  and  servant  laid  aside  his  armor 
and  entered  upon  the  reward  of  his  labors. 

'^His  greatest  glory/'  said  his  son,  William 
H.  Goodyear,  Curator  of  Fine  Arts  at  the 
Brooklyn  Museum,  ''is  not  that  he  discovered 
vulcanization,  but  that,  having  discovered  it, 
he  scorned  the  wealth  which  the  discovery 
created,  except  in  so  far  as  it  helped  him  in 
the  nobler  task  of  continuing  to  create  new  in- 
dustries.'' 


131 


LIGHT-BRINGERS 


Who  is  there  to  take  up  my  duties  V  asked  the  setting  sun. 
'I  shall  do  what  I  can,  my  Master/'  said  the  earthen  lamp. 


God  loves  man's  lamps  better  than  his  own  great  stars. 

Rabindranath  Tagore. 


LiaHT-BEINOERS 

THE  Greeks  said  that  when  Prometheus 
gave  man  the  gift  of  fire  he  called  down 
upon  himself  the  fearful  wrath  of  Jupiter  be- 
cause now  the  children  of  earth  might  become 
too  powerful  and  lift  up  their  eyes  boldly  to 
the  high  places  of  the  gods.  It  is  true  that  when 
man  learned  to  summon  a  spark  to  do  his  bid- 
ding he  had  won  the  '  ^  open  sesame ' '  of  all  prog- 
ress. He  could  now  cook  his  food,  warm  and 
light  his  dwelling,  forge  weapons,  and  fashion 
tools. 

It  is,  however,  as  easy  for  us  to  take  for 
granted  all  the  great  gifts  that  we  owe  to  fire 
as  it  is  to  strike  a  match.  Think  of  the  skill 
and  labor  once  required  to  do  the  task  that  one 
little  splinter  tipped  with  phosphorus  can  ac- 
complish at  a  stroke.  We  know  that  the  making 
of  a  new  flame  was  fraught  with  such  difficulty 
that  early  peoples  were  at  great  pains  to  keep 

135 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

their  fires  from  dying  out.    The  watchful  care 
of  fire  even  became  a  religious  duty. 

The  familiar  rhyme  about  the  ^^good  old 
times''  that  Washington  knew  reminds  us  that 
the  gifts  of  fire  are  but  newly  won : 

When  Washing-ton  was  President 

He  saw  full  many  an  icicle ; 
But  never  on  a  railroad  went 

And  never  rode  a  bicycle. 

His  trousers  ended  at  the  knees; 

By  wire  he  could  not  send  dispatch; 
He  filled  his  lamp  with  whale-oil  grease 

And  never  had  a  match  to  scratch. 

Second  only  in  importance  to  the  gift  of  fire 
itself,  was  the  discovery  of  the  ^^  black  dia- 
monds'' stored  within  the  earth  to  serve  as  fuel. 
How  precious  this  treasure  of  coal  is  to  a  people 
is  shown  by  the  events  of  the  World  War,  when 
Germany  risked  everything  to  wrest  from 
France  her  strip  of  mine  lands.  Italy  has  been 
handicapped  because  she  has  no  coal  to  feed  her 
machines  and  the  engines  of  her  railroads  and 
steamships.  Fuel  is  costly  when  it  must  be 
bought  in  other  lands  and  brought  from  afar. 

136 


LIGHT-BRINaERS 

The  country  that  is  rich  in  coal  has  the  way  to 
wealth  and  power. 

As  the  means  of  heating  our  houses  has  made 
us  independent  of  the  rigors  of  winter,  so 
better  ways  of  lighting  have  lengthened  our 
days  by  taking  away  some  of  the  hours  of  the 
night.  In  olden  days  a  curfew  bell  was  rung 
at  eight  o  'clock  to  bid  the  people  cover  their  fires 
and  remain  indoors.  (The  word  curfew  is  made 
from  two  French  words  couvrir  and  feu  that 
mean  cover  fire.)  Prudent  persons  would  not 
be  about  after  that  hour  when  danger  of  many 
kinds  lurked  in  the  dark  streets  lighted  only 
by  torches   and  lanterns. 

Even  as  recently  as  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  streets  of  great  cities  like 
London  and  Paris  were  at  the  mercy  of  masked 
ruffians  who  took  advantage  of  the  darkness 
that  surrounded  the  feeble  oil  lamps  to  attack 
helpless  wayfarers.  The  torch-bearers  or  link- 
boys  whose  business  it  was  to  accompany 
coaches  were  often  in  the  pay  of  thieves  or  reck- 
less intoxicated  young  bloods  who  found  in  the 
distress  and  panic  of  belated  travelers  a  rare 
sport. 

137 


OONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

The  darkness  that  tempted  rogues  made  cow- 
ards of  all  but  the  bravest;  and  the  poor  old 
watchmen  with  their  swinging  lanterns  were 
deaf  to  cries  for  help.  To-day  our  gas  and  elec- 
tric lights  are  the  most  effective  guardians  of 
our  streets.    Civilization  flourishes  in  the  light. 

The  conquest  of  darkness,  from  the  time  when 
savage  men  brought  out  a  spark  from  flint  and 
iron  to  the  time  when  Edison  learned  to  compel 
the  electric  current  to  serve  our  needs,  is  a 
strange  and  fascinating  story. 


138 


A  FINDER  OF  BURIED  TREASURE 
William  Muedock  (1754-1839) 

SOME  day,  wheii  you  visit  the  land  of  Scott 
and  Burns,  make  a  little  journey  apart 
from  the  places  starred  in  your  guide-book  to 
Bellomill  near  Old  Cumnock,  Ayrshire,  where 
the  swift  Bello  stream  joins  the  blithe  gurgling 
waters  of  Lugar.  There  behind  the  remains  of 
the  old  mill  is  a  playhouse  with  a  story.  Dug 
out  of  the  rock  is  a  room  four  or  ^ve  yards  long 
and  as  many  wide  where  William  Murdock — or 
Murdoch,  as  his  name  was  spelled  then — used 
to  play  with  his  brothers. 

*  ^  The  child  is  father  of  the  man, ' '  we  are  told ; 
and  the  lads  who  hollowed  out  that  place  in  the 
stony  bank  for  their  boyish  fun  were  already 
playing  in  a  fashion  that  was  to  bear  real  fruit 
in  the  grown-up  years.  There  was  a  fireplace 
in  that  play-room  with  a.  vent  constructed  so 

139 


CONQUESTS  OP  INVENTION 

as  to  carry  the  smoke  and  fumes  along  the  gar- 
den to  mingle  with  those  from  the  kitchen  of 
Bello-mill  House.  And  near  that  fireplace  was 
a  pan  that  held  big  pieces  of  the  slaty,  splint 
coal — ^^parrof  coal,  the  boys  called  it — ^which 
could  always  be  depended  on  to  give  out  a  beau- 
tiful light.  William  soon  discovered  that  the 
flames,  which  lighted  up  their  cave  so  delight- 
fully when  the  boys  told  stories  of  pirates  and 
buried  treasure,  came  from  a  gas  that  the  coal 
breathed  out  as  it  burned. 

'^What  if  one  could  find  some  way  of  drawing 
that  gas  out  of  the  coal  and  sending  it  through 
pipes  to  lamps  in  people 's  houses  I  It  might  be 
even  better  than  oil  as  a  light, '^  he  thought. 
And  "William  Murdock  little  dreamed  that  in 
that  moment  he  had  stumbled  on  the  secret  of  a 
treasure  buried  for  ages  in  the  earth  which  it 
was  to  be  his  fortune  to  find  and  bring  to  light 
for  the  use  of  man.  There  was  almost  a  tempest 
in  a  teapot  when  William  borrowed  a  little  old 
kettle  of  his  mother's  in  which  to  try  an  early 
experiment  in  gas-making.  For  in  the  Bello- 
mill  play-house  William  Murdock  made  his  first 

140 


WILLIAM  MUBDOCK 

attempts  to  call  out  from  his  ** parrot''  coal  the 
gas  that  burned  with  the  bright  light. 

William's  brothers  could  not  understand  why 
the  coal  flares  interested  him  so  much.  They 
were  much  more  delighted  with  his  wonderful 
wooden  horse  on  which  they  could  all  ride  to 
school.  This  wooden  horse  was,  by  the  way,  a 
famous  invention.  It  had  something  of  the 
nature  of  the  contrivance  that  we  know  to-day 
as  a  tricycle,  and  there  was  also  something  about 
it  that  tried  hard  to  give  a  hint  of  the  loco- 
motive. 

It  was  not  a  matter  of  great  surprise  to  the 
neighbors  that  William  should  have  a  fondness 
for  tools  and  mechanical  devices.  ^  *  He 's  a  regu- 
lar chip  o'  the  auld  block!"  they  used  to  say. 
For  John  Murdock,  his  father,  was  not  only  a 
farmer  and  millwright  but  also  a  man  of  many 
*^ bonny"  inventions  in  the  use  of  wood  and 
metals;  and  one  of  them  at  least — ^his  toothed 
circular  iron-gearing — ^was  famous  at  that  time 
in  the  only  large  engineering-plant  in  Scotland, 
the  Carron  Ironworks. 

So,  while  it  seemed  only  natural  that  young 
William  should  have  a  turn  for  tinkering  about 

141 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

with  his  father's  tools,  it  was  something  more 
amazing  when  he  showed  that  he  could  do  more 
than  make  curiosities  and  gimcracks.  When  he 
was  still  in  his  teens  he  worked  off  some  of  his 
energy  and  inventiveness  by  constructing  a 
stone  bridge  over  Nith  Creek  that  was  not  only 
strong  and  cleverly  built  but  also  really  pic- 
turesque. 

**  Weel,  a  brig  maun  look  as  if  it  graws  out  o' 
the  banks  and  had  a  true  hame  'mongst  the 
bums  an'  braes  where  it  finds  itselV'  the  boy 
said  when  they  told  him  that  his  handiwork 
was  a  ^^fine  braw,  bit  o'  building." 

Young  Murdock  showed  his  inventive  turn  by 
making  an  oval  turning  lathe.  Then,  wearing 
a  wooden  hat  turned  out  by  his  ^^lathey,"  he 
set  out  to  seek  his  fortune.  He  knew  something 
of  the  iron-works  where  his  father's  gearing  had 
been  made,  and  through  that  something  about 
James  Watt  who  had  been  carrying  out  experi- 
ments there  with  his  newly  patented  steam-en- 
gine. But  alas,  the  Car r on  Ironworks  failed 
before  William  Murdock  could  knock  at  this 
door  to  opportunity. 

Nothing  daunted,  however,  by  the  prospect 
142 


WILLIAM  MUEDOCK 

of  a  tramp  to  Birmingham  (wliicli  was  in  those 
days  a  week's  journey  by  stage-coach),  he  de- 
termined to  find  a  place  in  that  new  world  of 
engineering  ventures,  where  Watt,  now  as- 
sociated with  Matthew  Boulton,  was  making 
his  steam-engines  at  the  Soho  works. 

Can  you  picture  the  hardy  Scot  as  he  pre- 
sented himself  in  his  home-turned  hat?  It  was 
the  unique  head  gear  that  first  caught  Boulton 's 
eye.  ^ '  That  is  a  queer  cap  you  have.  Of  what 
is  it  made  V^  he  demanded. 

^ '  Timmer, ' '  stammered  the  young  man,  in  his 
broad  Scotch  fashion. 

^^Of  wood,  do  you  say?    How  was  it  madef 

*'I  turned  it  myseP  on  a  bit  lathey  o'  my  own 
making, ' '  was  the  reply. 

Boulton  saw  at  once  that  here  was  a  man  of 
uncommon  mechanical  skill.  Moreover,  some- 
thing out  of  the  common  in  the  face  under  the 
remarkable  hat  held  his  attention.  Then  the 
master  of  the  iron-works,  who  prided  himself 
on  being  a  judge  of  men,  said:  '^ There  is  no 
place  open  here  now,  as  I  told  you  at  the  outset ; 
but,  if  I  mistake  not,  you're  a  man  who  can 
make  a  place  for  yourself — and  fill  it!" 

143 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

So  William  Murdock  found  tlie  employment 
he  sought,  and  before  many  months  he  had  be- 
come **the  right  hand  man"  of  the  firm  of  Boul- 
ton  and  Watt.  Andrew  Carnegie  in  his  ^^Life 
of  James  Watt"  tells  the  following  anecdote  in 
commenting  upon  Murdock 's  success: 

His  history  is  the  usual  march  upward  until  he  became 
his  employers^  most  trusted  manager  in  all  their  mechanical 
operations.  While  engaged  upon  one  critical  job,  where  the 
engine  had  defied  previous  attempts  to  put  it  to  rights,  the 
people  in  the  house  where  Murdoch  lodged  were  awakened 
one  night  by  heavy  tramping  in  his  room  overhead.  Upon 
entering,  Murdoch  was  seen  in  his  bed  clothes  heaving 
away  at  his  bed  post  in  his  sleep,  calling  out  "Now  she 
goes,  lads,  now  she  goes."  His  heart  was  in  his  work.  He 
had  a  mission,  and  only  one — to  make  that  engine  go. 

Murdock 's  employers  had  serious  difficulty  in 
getting  their  products  installed  in  mines,  par- 
ticularly those  in  Cornwall  where  there  were 
some  very  bitter  and  persistent  rivals  in  the 
field.  *^Let  William  be  sent  to  handle  that  mat- 
ter,'*  said  Watt  when  a  situation  arose  requir- 
ing skill  in  human  engineering  as  well  as  me- 
chanical readiness. 

Young  Murdock  was  at  this  time  twenty-five 
years  of  age.    **I  well  remember  hearing  my 

144 


WILLIAM  MIIRDOCK 

father  speak  of  his  coming  to  Cornwall,''  said 
an  old  Cornish  doctor.  *'IIe  was  tall,  and  as 
strong  of  back  and  arm  as  of  head.  They  say  he 
conld  prove  his  point  by  giving  a  drnbbing  to  an 
ugly  customer  of  a  workman  who  was  spoiling 
for  a  fight  when  the  need  arose.  Once  they  tried 
to  get  rid  of  the  Watt  engines  in  the  mines  by 
foul  play.  Nobody  could  tell  why  a  certain 
newly  set  up  engine  would  n^t  work.  Then  at 
last  Murdock  went  and  looked  her  over  from 
stem  to  stern.  There,  just  as  he  suspected, 
something  was  queered ;  a  bolt  had  been  slipped 
out  of  its  proper  place.  ^  Try  her  now, '  he  cried, 
and  everybody  stood  around  and  saw  the  engine 
go — as  well  as  the  underhand  trick  that  had 
made  the  trouble.  James  Watt  had  a  real  cap- 
tain of  men  as  well  as  of  steam  engines  in  Mur- 
dock, and  he  knew  if 

The  letters  of  the  inventor  of  the  steam-en- 
gine give  repeated  proof  of  the  dependence  he 
put  in  Murdock,  who  through  many  years  had 
as  his  chief  reward  the  knowledge  that  he  was 
able  to  render  services  that  none  other  could. 
For  years  his  salary  was  only  twenty  shillings 
a  week.     But  money  was  never  an  end  with 

145 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

Mnrdock,  to  wliom  first  and  last  tlie  work 
done  was  tlie  thing  that  counted.  In  1780,  when 
Bonze,  one  of  the  chief  rivals  of  the  Watt  and 
Boulton  firm,  offered  to  take  Murdock  into  part- 
nership, he  met  with  an  uncompromising  no. 
He  had  left  his  Scotland,  he  said,  and  was  spend- 
ing his  days  in  English  foundries  and  mines  in 
order  to  become  associated  with  Watt,  and  he 
was  a  man  who  knew  how  to  steer  a  straight 
course. 

In  the  years  when  Murdock  was  making  in 
Watt's  interests  frequent  trips  from  one  min- 
ing-district to  another,  he  sometimes  thought 
whimsically  of  the  wooden  horse  of  his  school- 
days. And  one  evening  when  he  sat  down  to 
supper  with  some  nineteen  miles  in  the  muscles 
of  his  weary  legs,  he  wondered  if  a  steam-engine 
might  not  be  made  to  serve  as  motive  power 
for  some  such  contrivance. 

With  Murdock  to  think  was  to  act, — to  try 
and  test.  In  the  years  between  1781  and  1783 
he  spent  most  of  his  evening  hours  in  con- 
structing a  *  locomotive  steam  engine,  some- 
what like  a  tricycle,  19  inches  long  and  14  inches 
high,  with  a  copper  boiler  with  fire-box  and  flue, 

146 


WILLIAM  MUEDOCK 

a  spirit  lamp,  and  one  double-acting  cylinder, 
two  driving  wheels  and  a  steering  wheel. ' '  This 
curious  model  was  later  given  a  place  of  honor 
in  the  Birmingham  Art  Museum,  for  it  was  the 


Murdock's  Model  of  Locomotive 

very  earliest  locomotive,  the  forerunner  of  the 
mighty  road-devouring  iron  horses  of  to-day. 

Visitors  to  Redruth,  Cornwall,  may  read  on  a 
tablet  placed  in  the  wall  of  a  modest  house  in 
Cross  Street  the  following  inscription: 

147 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

WILLIAM  MURDOCH 

Lived  in  this  house, 

1782—1798 

Made  the  first  locomotive  here, 

and  tested  it  in  1784. 

Invented  Gas-Lighting 

and  used  it  in  this  house  in 

1792. 

A  humorous  story  is  told  oi  Murdock's  early 
experiences  with  his  locomotive.  Alexander 
Murdoch  says  in  his  sketch  of  the  inventor : 

Murdoch  made  frequent  satisfactory  trials  of  his  loco- 
motive in  his  own  house,  as  is  testified  by  many  persons 
who  saw  it,  and  the  story  of  the  first  trial  in  the  open  air 
will  bear  repetition.  It  was  on  a  dark  night,  early  in  the 
year  1784,  and  the  road  chosen  was  a  lonely  lane  bordered 
with  high  hedgerows,  leading  to  the  parish  church  and 
rectory.  The  boiler  was  filled,  the  lamp  was  lighted;  soon 
the  steam  got  up,  and  off  went  the  engine,  puffing  and 
snorting  at  the  rate  of  6  or  8  miles  an  hour.  It  soon  outran 
the  inventor,  and  then  the  night  air  was  rent  by  a  suc- 
cession of  frightened  cries  for  help.  Murdoch,  hurrying  up, 
found  the  worthy  rector,  who,  hearing  a  puffing  and  snort- 
ing, and  seeing  only  a  fiery  eye  rushing  along  not  much 
above  the  level  of  the  ground,  believed  he  had  encountered 
the  Evil  One  in  person. 

That  evening  Murdock  knew  that  his  queer 
steam-driven  devil  was  going  to  arrive  some- 
where.   He  went  on  with  enthusiasm  working 

148 


WILLIAM  MUEDOCK 

out  his  idea  despite  the  discouragement  of 
Watt,  who  said:  ''You  are  hunting  shadows, 
William,  when  you  dream  that  such  an  engine 
as  pumps  out  the  water  from  mines  can  move 
itself  about  on  wheels.  That  would  mean  a 
miracle. ' ' 

**Then  I  Ve  seen  miracles  worked  already," 
Murdock  replied;  ''and  I  expect  to  live  to  see 
more  of  them.'' 

The  day  came  when  he  rode  about  on  his 
rounds  from  mine  to  mine  as  Yfatt's  represen- 
tative in  a  puffing  rattling  steam-carriage, 
which  was  before  long  lighted  with  gas  of  his 
own  manufacture.  Watt,  however,  still  strong- 
ly objected  to  Murdock 's  perfecting  and  patent- 
ing his  locomotive.  He  felt  it  was  his  right  to 
reserve  for  himself  the  chance  to  make  any  and 
all  possible  developments  of  the  steam-engine. 
In  effect  he  said  to  his  assistant:  "I  cannot 
consent  to  your  expending  good  time  and  mate- 
rial in  such  a  vain  cause.  Stick  to  your  job  of 
building  and  introducing  our  tried  and  proved 
working  engines.  If  there  were  any  chance  of 
this  steam  carriage  becoming  a  practical  success 
I  should  myself  follow  it  up  and  develop  it." 

149 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

Murdock  was  too  loyal  to  accuse  Ms  chief 
even  in  thought  of  a  dog-in-the-manger  spirit; 
but  later  events  have  made  it  clear  that  but 
for  Watt's  opposition  the  locomotive  would  have 
been  given  to  the  world  full  forty  years  before 
the  time  of  Stephenson. 

Was  it  perhaps  one  evening  when  he  was  try- 
ing to  console  himself  for  his  disappointment  in 
regard  to  the  steam-carriage  that  Murdock  drew 
in  with  the  soothing  smoke  from  his  pipe  a  new 
inspiration!  As  he  looked  into  the  burning 
coals  on  the  grate,  an  old  idea  flared  up,  flick- 
ered, and  then  all  at  once  burst  into  bloom.  He 
saw  the  gas  sputtering  into  flame  as  it  came 
from  the  coal  and  recalled  his  boyish  experi- 
ments when  he  had  succeeded  in  capturing  this 
gas  in  an  old  teapot.  Stooping,  he  put  a  piece 
of  the  coal  in  the  bowl  of  his  pipe,  which  he 
closed ;  then  he  set  fire  to  the  gas  that  began  to 
escape  from  the  stem. 

*^Weel,  now,"  said  William  Murdock,  *4f  ye 
dinna  think  a  new  thing  is  possible,  put  that  in 
your  pipe  an '  smoke  it ! ' ' 

It  seemed  as  if  he  saw  in  a  flash  the  coming 
of  a  new  light  for  man  and  all  that  it  might 

150 


"WILLIAM  MURDOCK 

mean  through  the  miniature  gas-plant  which  he 
held  in  his  hand.  A  place  to  draw  the  gas  from 
the  coal — he  tapped  the  bowl  of  his  pipe — and 
tubes  or  pipes  to  carry  it  to  the  place  to  be 
lighted — he  looked  triumphantly  at  the  stem 
from  which  the  gas  was  still  creeping.  He  be- 
gan now  in  earnest  his  experiments  in  making 
and  conveying  gas. 

The  news  soon  went  abroad  that  queer,  un- 
canny things  were  taking  place  in  the  Murdock 
house.  One  evening  a  group  of  the  more  daring 
youngsters  of  the  neighborhood  were  taking 
turns  peering  through  the  window  and  report- 
ing what  they  thought  of  the  mysteries  within, 
when  Murdock  suddenly  appeared  and  calling 
to  one  lad  sent  him  to  a.  shop  to  buy  a  thimble. 
Was  there  to  be  a  game  of  *^hunt  the  thimble" 
in  the  shadows  among  all  the  pots  and  kettles 
in  that  place  of  strange  sigjhts  and  smells! 
Well,  when  people  were  queer  there  was  no 
telling  what  the  next  fancy  would  be!  Young 
Jack  showed  that  he  could  run  and  he  was  back 
at  the  door  with  the  thimble  in  less  than  ^ve 
minutes ;  but  having  some  difficulty  in  pulling  it 
from  his  pocket,  he  succeeded  in  edging  his  way 

151 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

into  the  work-room  before  he  handed  it  over. 
And  the  door  closed  with  Jack  inside ! 

What  a  story  he  would  have  to  tell  to  the 
fellows  ont  there!  There  was  a  kettle  full  of 
coal  and  a  big  metal  container  like  those  used  in 
blasting.  But  what  was  Mr.  Murdock  doing 
with  the  thimble?  He  punched  a  number  of 
holes  through  the  top  and  then  fitted  it  like  a  cap 
over  a  tube  which  he  fastened  to  the  metal  case. 
Then  he  set  fire  to  the  end  of  the  thimble ! 

'*And  it  burned,  man,  it  burned  fine,"  Jack 
reported ;  *  ^but  it  smelled  horrid.  You  can  even 
smell  it  out  here,  but  not  so  much,  of  course,  as 
in  the  house,"  he  added  to  console  the  boys  who 
had  not  been  so  fortunate  as  himself  in  really 
seeing  the  exciting  experiment  in  gas-making. 

Murdock  carried  on  many  experiments  after 
that,  and  in  1792,  succeeded  in  making  a  supply 
of  gas  in  an  iron  retort  at  the  rear  of  his  house 
to  which  it  was  carried  through  pipes.  Besides 
lighting  his  home  and  office,  he  made  a  gas  lamp 
that  could  be  carried  in  his  locomotive,  storing 
the  gas  in  a  tank  with  a  nozzle  attached,  and 
another  portable  lamp  where  a  tube  was  con- 
nected with  a  sort  of  bladder  filled  with  gas. 

152 


WILLIAM  MUEDOCK 

In  1798,  when  Murdock's  services  to  the  firm 
of  Boulton  and  Watt  were  at  last  recognized  by 
the  promotion  to  both  the  name  and  the  salary 


Murdock'a   Gas   Generator 


of  Manager  of  the  practical  department,  he 
lighted  the  Soho  works  with  gas  which  he  had 
now  succeeded  in  purifying  so  that  the  objeo- 

153 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

tionable  smell  was  removed  while  the  brightness 
of  the  light  was  increased. 

It  is  amusing  to  note  the  difficulties  encount- 
ered in  bringing  gas-lighting  into  general  use 
even  after  the  great  industrial  plants  like  the 
Soho  works  at  Birmingham,  and  the  largest  cot- 
ton manufactory  of  Manchester  had  demon- 
strated its  immense  advantages. 

''Do  you  mean  to  tell  us  it  is  possible  to  have 
a  light  without  a  wick!''  exclaimed  a  member 
of  Parliament  when  a  bill  was  introduced  in 
1809  to  grant  a  charter  to  a  gas-light  company. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  made  fun  of  the  notion  of 
' '  lighting  London  by  smoke ' '  and  '  ^  even  carry- 
ing the  light  below  the  streets  in  pipes."  But 
he  lived  to  see  his  own  home,  Abbotsf  ord,  lighted 
by  gas. 

''We  '11  have  to  turn  over  the  dome  of  St. 
Paul's  for  a  gas-holder  for  London!"  declared 
Sir  Humphry  Davy,  the  inventor  of  the  safety 
lamp,  with  a  merry  twinkle. 

"I  ken  it  '11  take  something  bigger  than  St. 
Paul's,"  replied  Murdock  gravely. 

Perhaps  our  slang  use  of  "gas"  for  boastful 
and  putfed-up  speech  originated  at  this  time, 

154 


WILLIAM  MURDOCK 

when  the  following  nonsense  verse  was  often 
copied  and  repeated  in  Scotland  as  well  as  in 
England : 

We  thankful  are  that  sun  and  moon 

Were  placed  so  very  high 
That  no  tempestuous  hand  might  reach 

To  tear  them  from  the  sky. 
Were  it  not  so,  we  soon  should  find 

That  some  reforming  ass 
Would  straight  propose  to  snuff  them  out, 

And  light  the  world  with  Gas. 

When  the  day  came  that  the  House  of  Com- 
mons was  lighted  by  gas,  the  architect  exacted 
that  the  pipes  be  kept  at  least  four  inches  from 
the  walls  to  avert  fire ;  for  it  was  thought  that 
the  illuminant  passed  along  in  the  form  of  red- 
hot  vapor.  Other  people  declared  that  this 
strange  thing  must  be  a  menace  to  health,  that 
it  would  cause  eye  troubles,  asthma,  consump- 
tion, and  many  other  dire  diseases. 

Perhaps,  however,  the  most  extraordinary 
complaint  against  the  ^^new  light"  was  that  it 
would  drive  out  the  whale-oil  industry,  and  so 
mean  the  destruction  of  the  British  Navy,  since 
the  whaling-ships  gave  the  best  training  for 
sailors. 

155 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

One  of  the  many  disappointments  in  the  his- 
tory of  invention  is  the  lack  of  proper  recog- 
nition of  Mnrdock's  work.  His  name  should  be 
as  nniversally  known  as  is  Watt's  when  we 
speak  of  the  steam-engine  or  Edison's  in  con- 
nection with  the  electric  light.  Why  is  it  that 
only  a  few  realize  what  the  world  owes  to  this 
great  and  rarely  nnselfish  man?  The  answer 
lies  partly  in  the  circumstance  which  kept  him 
always  in  the  shadow  of  Watt  as  loyal  and  de- 
voted *  ^  right  hand  man. ' '  And  the  master  was 
too  absorbed  in  the  problems  growing  out  of 
his  own  concerns  to  add  to  his  vital  interests  any 
thought  for  the  independent  claims  of  his  trusty 
lieutenant. 

So  Murdock's  means  and  method  of  making 
gas  were  not  even  patented,  while  men  who  later 
devised  special  burners,  meters,  and  other  de- 
tails connected  with  his  invention  reaped  for- 
tunes. 

^^Thou  wert  an  ignoramus,  old  Murdock!" 
exclaims  one  biographer.  ^^Why  didst  thou 
not  puff  thyself!  Thinkest  thou  if  Sir  A.  or  Sir 
B.  had  invented  the  gas-light  we  should  ever 
have  heard  the  last  of  it  T ' 

156 


WILLIAM  MUEDOCK 

William  Murdock  lived  to  the  ripe  old  age  of 
eighty-five.  For  many  years  he  served  in  the 
firm  of  Bonlton,  Watt  &  Company  as  partner, 
guide,  and  friend  of  the  junior  Boulton  and 
Watt  whom  he  loved  as  sons. 

Several  memorials  have  been  tardily  raised 
to  bear  witness  to  the  services  of  this  *^  grand 
old  man. ''  But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of 
them,  the  one  most  in  keeping  with  the  spirit 
and  history  of  William  Murdock,  is  the  one  that 
a  master  stone-mason,  who  as  a  boy  had  seen 
the  inventor  when  he  returned  on  visits  to  his 
native  town,  erected  on  his  own  initiative  in 
Auchinleck  Churchyard.  We  read  there  this 
inscription : 

To  the  Memory  of  William  Murdoch,  bom  in  Bellowmill, 
in  this  Parish,  in  1754 ;  died  at  Handsworth  in  1839. 
Like  many  of  his  countrymen  in  England  he  rose  to 
eminence  by  the  native  force  of  his  character,  and  benefited 
his  own  and  other  ages  by  his  discoveries  in  gas,  and  by  his 
mechanical  inventions  as  the  associate  of  Watt  and  Boulton. 


157 


THE  FEANKLIN  OF  OUE  TIMES 

Thomas  Ax^va  Edisoe"  (1847-         ) 

A  MAN  who  could  see  through  the  outer 
shell  of  things  and  read  something  of 
their  meaning  has  called  Edison  *  ^  The  Franklin 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century."  But  the  crowd 
made  a  marvel  of  his  inventions  as  if  he  had 
the  magician's  wand  or  secret  spell  and  insisted 
on  calling  him  the  ^^ Wizard  of  Menlo  Park" 
even  after  his  plant  had  been  transferred  to 
"West  Orange.  The  Wizard  is,  however,  glad 
that  he  has  two  deaf  ears  to  turn  to  praise  of 
this  sort. 

**  There  are  many  gains  that  more  than  bal- 
ance my  loss  of  hearing,"  he  says  whimsically. 
*^I  can  go  about  New  York,  for  instance,  seeing 
what  I  like  and  hearing  little  of  the  rush  and 
roar.  And  I  am  not  troubled  by  this  foolish 
talk  about  my  wizard  tricks.    I  have  always  been 

158 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

ready  to  put  things  to  the  test  and  to  learn 
from  what  happens.  That  and  the  will  to  work 
while  others  sleep  are  the  only  spells  I  know.'^ 

The  really  great  men  are  always  very  simple. 
There  is  a  homespun  directness  about  those 
who  care  for  the  gold  of  achievement  rather 
than  the  tinsel  of  appearance.  And  there  is  in- 
deed a  striking  parallel  between  Franklin,  who 
with  kite  and  key  coaxed  lightning  from  the 
clouds,  and  Edison,  who  has  summoned  that 
mighty  power  to  do  the  bidding  of  man  in  many 
ways. 

The  keynote  of  Franklin's  character  was 
thrift, —  real  thrift  that  means  wise  use  of  one's 
gifts  and  opportunities.  We  see  this  not  only 
in  the  sayings  of  Poor  Eichard  but  also  in  the 
way  he  followed  his  own  teaching  throughout 
his  most  amazing  career.  For  the  man  who  be- 
gan as  printer  and  became  scientist,  inventor, 
and  statesman,  was  first  and  last  the  most  use- 
ful citizen  of  his  day. 

So  with  the  Franklin  of  our  own  time.  While 
we  marvel  at  the  range  of  his  powers  and  the 
number  of  his  accomplishments  we  find  the  ex- 
planation the  same, — not  magic  but  thrift. 

159 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

As  a  boy  lie  was  called  queer  and  stupid. 
Surely  no  cMld  with  all  his  wits  would  think 
that  he  could  sit  on  goose-eggs  as  successfully  as 
the  mother  goose  and  actually  try  it  out.  Other 
children  often  asked  silly  questions,  but  they 
did  n't  act  the  goose  as  he  did! 

There  never  was  such  a  boy  for  asking  why. 
And  if  you  couldn't  meet  his  every  why,  then 
why  not?  The  school  in  the  little  town  of  Port 
Huron,  Ohio,  where  he  sat  at  the  foot  of  his 
class  for  three  months  didn't  know  what  to 
make  of  a  boy  who  could  n't  learn  out  of  books 
as  the  others  did,  but  was  always  asking  some- 
thing that  was  n't  in  the  lesson  at  all. 

His  mother,  however,  knew  that  he  wasn't 
stupid.  She  had  once  been  a  teacher,  one  of  the 
wise  sort  who  know  life,  as  well  as  books. 
**  Would  n't  you  rather  have  a  child  who  really 
thinks  than  one  who  says  things  parrot  fashion 
every  time  you  call  his  name?"  she  asked  the 
boy's  teacher,  indignantly.  She  would  teach 
her  boy  at  home.  He  should  not  go  to  a  school 
that  called  a  boy  a  dunce  and  did  everything 
to  make  him  one  by  clipping  the  wings  of  his 

160 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

thought  and  imagination  whenever  he  tried  to 
use  them. 

So  ^^Al"  Edison  was  taught  by  his  mother, 
and  before  he  was  twelve  they  had  read  several 
wise  books  together, — ^books  that  answered 
questions  and  gave  one  much  to  think  about, 
such  as  Sear 's  ^  ^  History  of  the  World, ' '  and  the 
Dictionary  of  Science.  And  the  things  young 
Al  Edison  learned  seemed  like  windows  opening 
out  on  new  things  to  wonder  about. 

He  spent  his  pocket-money  at  the  drug  store, 
not  for  candy,  but  for  chemicals  to  try  some  of 
the  experiments  he  had  read  about.  Soon  there 
were  in  the  cellar  of  the  Edison  house  some 
two  hundred  bottles  labeled  **poison"  to  scare 
away  the  curious. 

Batteries  and  test-tubes  and  chemicals  cost 
more  than  a  small  boy  can  command,  even  when, 
as  was  the  case  with  Al  Edison,  he  worked  on  a 
ten-acre  truck  farm  and  sold  his  peas,  lettuce, 
and  tomatoes,  from  door  to  door  through  the 
town.  Besides,  hoeing  corn  in  July  was  hot 
work,  especially  when  one  longed  to  be  down  in 
the  cellar  with  his  precious  bottles. 

^^Why  not  let  me  sell  papers  on  the  train  to 
161 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

Detroit  r'  asked  the  enterprising  lad  one  day. 
^^I  see  my  way  to  do  quite  a  business  and  I 
could  spend  some  liours  every  day  at  the  public 
library. '  ^ 

Of  course  that  appealed  to  his  mother.  He 
carried  his  point  and  did  indeed  build  up  a 
flourishing  business.  While  selling  newspapers, 
magazines,  and  candy  on  the  train,  he  won  per- 
mission from  the  conductor  to  use  an  empty 
compartment  of  the  mail-car  to  carry  baskets  of 
vegetables  and  fruit  back  to  Port  Huron 
where  he  opened  a  little  store  with  one  of  his 
boy  friends  as  clerk. 

Nor  did  he  have  to  be  parted  from  his  labora- 
tory while  on  the  road.  The  baggage-car  would 
hold  more  than  his  stock  of  newspapers  and  a 
fresh  supply  of  produce  for  his  store.  Soon  he 
transferred  to  it  his  stock  of  jars  and  bottles 
which  had  increased  greatly  because  he  was  now 
prosperous  enough  to  buy  many  new  and  fasci- 
nating articles. 

But,  alas !  the  course  of  young  ambition  does 
not  always  run  smooth,  even  on  an  express- 
train  where  one  has  been  allowed  to  have  every- 
thing his  own  way  for  a  time.    There  came  one 

162 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

day  a  sudden  jolt  that  threw  a  stick  of  phos- 
phorus out  of  its  place  to  the  floor  of  the  car 
laboratory,  where  it  burst  into  flame  and  set  the 
car  on  fire. 

The  conductor  rushed  water  to  the  scene  and 
put  out  the  fire,  but  his  wrath  still  blazed,  and 
as  the  train  came  to  a  stop  for  a  station  he  flung 
the  unlucky  experimenter  from  his  traveling 
workshop  with  all  his  precious  possessions  in  a 
sorry  heap,  giving  the  culprit  at  the  same  time 
such  a  sounding  cuff  over  the  ears  that  they 
never  recovered  from  the  shock.  The  inven- 
tor's deafness  dates  from  that  day. 

^' Spilt  milk  doesn't  interest  me,"  said  Edi- 
son years  afterward.  ^^I  have  spilt  lots  of  it 
and  while  I  have  always  felt  it  for  a  few  days, 
it  is  quickly  forgotten  and  I  look  ahead  to  the 
future. ' ' 

The  next  day  the  boy,  with  his  father's  per- 
mission, set  up  his  workshop  in  a  spare  room 
of  the  Port  Huron  home,  and  he  passed  through 
the  cars  of  the  train  to  Detroit  with  his  pile  of 
newspapers  and  candies  as  if  nothing  had  hap- 
pened. It  was  not  in  him  to  harbor  a  grudge 
against  the  conductor,  whose  first  duty  was  to 

163 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

guard  the  lives  and  property  in  Ms  care.  Nor 
did  he  cry  out  against  his  own  hard  luck,  even 
though  not  only  his  chemical  outfit  but  also  his 
cherished  printing-apparatus  had  been  sadly 
wrecked.  For,  besides  experimenting  with 
gases  and  batteries,  the  young  ^^candy-butcher" 
had  actually  set  np  a  practical  printing-office  in 
the  mail-car  compartment  that  he  had  come  to 
look  npon  as  his  own.  There  he  had  printed  the 
** Weekly  Herald,''  of  which  he  was  reporter, 
editor,  business  manager,  type-setter,  and  all 
the  rest;  and,  taking  advantage  of  the  eager 
demand  for  news  during  the  feverish  years  of 
the  Civil  "War,  he  had  sold  as  many  copies  of  his 
enterprising  sheet  as  he  could  turn  out. 

Now  in  his  home  workshop  he  set  up  another 
newspaper — ■  '  Paul  Pry, ' '  he  called  it — that  was 
to  satisfy  the  demand  for  items  of  local  interest. 
These  publishing-ventures  showed  young  Edi- 
son's native  shrewdness  and  gave  scope  for  his 
initiative  and  imagination  during  the  months 
when  he  was  eagerly  devouring  the  contents  of 
the  Detroit  Public  Library,  shelf  by  shelf.  But 
perhaps  the  greatest  good  for  the  future  that 
came  out  of  this  chapter  of  his  boyhood  was  the 

164 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

interest  lie  developed  in  the  telegraph  and 
through  it  in  electricity. 

He  had  learned  the  advantage  of  sending 
news  by  wire  when  getting  items  for  his  paper. 
He  had  also  had  the  enterprise  to  send  ahead  to 
way-stations  bulletins  of  important  war  news, 
in  order  to  create  a  demand  for  his  sheets  when 
the  train  arrived. 

*^My  chum  and  I  used  to  hang  around  tele- 
graph offices, ' '  said  Edison,  and  we  rigged  up  a 
line  between  our  homes  of  stovepipe  wire  with 
bottles  as  insulators,  set  on  nails  driven  into 
trees  and  short  poles. ' ' 

Fate,  having  prepared  the  young  actor  for 
the  next  act  of  his  life  drama,  set  the  stage  for 
a  * 'popular  hero''  scene.  The  train-boy  was 
waiting  at  a  station  while  freight-cars  were 
being  shifted  about,  when  he  saw  that  the  small 
son  of  the  station  agent  was  in  the  middle  of  a 
track  on  which  a  train  was  rapidly  approach- 
ing. Down  went  papers  and  packages  as  the  lad 
flung  himself  at  the  child  and  swept  him  out 
of  the  path  of  the  locomotive  with  not  an  instant 
to  spare. 

*  *  Good  boy,  brave  boy ! ' '  repeated  the  tearful 
165 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

father  as  lie  wrung  tlie  hero's  hand,  cut  and 
scratched  as  it  was  by  the  stones  on  which  he 
had  fallen  by  the  track.  ^^What  can  I  do  for 
you!  I  know/'  he  said,  in  a  burst  of  inspira- 
tion, '^you  would  like,  maybe,  to  learn  to  be  a 
train  operator.  Well,  I  '11  teach  you  all  I  know 
of  the  business. " 

It  is  easy  enough  to  find  time  for  what  one 
really  wants  to  do,  even  in  the  crowded  life  of 
such  a  man  of  business  as  young  Edison.  A 
boy  was  found  to  fill  in  on  the  train  for  part  of 
the  run,  reserving  for  Al  the  section  of  the  route 
between  his  home  and  the  station  where  his 
grateful  telegrapher  worked.  He  had  already 
mastered  the  Morse  alphabet;  what  he  had 
chiefly  to  learn  was  the  abbreviated  code  em- 
ployed in  railway  work  to  save  time.  Some  of 
the  figures  used  in  this  way  have  become  gen- 
erally known,  such  as  23 ,  which  stood  for  ac- 
cident or  death  and  was  regarded  as  a  bad  sign ; 
and  73^  which  stood  for  congratulations  and 
good  wishes. 

Then  after  several  months  of  study  and  prac- 
tice Edison  fell  heir  to  the  position  of  telegraph 
operator  at  Port  Huron.    He  was  at  this  time 

166 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

sixteen  years  old  and  as  bnsy  asking  questions 
— chiefly  now  of  the  scientific  books  and  the  op- 
portunities for  experiment  that  came  his  way — 
as  he  had  been  as  a  child  when  his  insistent  wJiy 
and  again  why  to  all  about  him  used  to  wear  out 
the  patience  of  every  one  except  his  mother. 

He  tried  to  get  the  men  who  worked  with  elec- 
tricity to  explain  something  of  its  what  and 
why, 

**The  telegraph  men  couldn't  explain  how  it 
worked,"  he  said  afterward,  ^'I  remember  the 
best  explanation  I  got  was  from  an  old  Scotch 
line  repairer  who  said  that  if  you  had  a  dog  like 
a  dachshund  long  enough  to  reach  from  Edin- 
burgh to  London,  and  if  you  pulled  his  tail  in 
Edinburgh  he  would  bark  in  London.  I  under- 
stood that,  but  I  couldn't  grasp  what  went 
through  the  dog  or  over  the  wire. ' ' 

And  to-day  Edison  says  he  is  no  nearer  the 
answer  to  the  question  of  what  this  electricity 
is  with  which  he  works  than  he  was  at  that  time. 

The  next  years  of  Edison's  life  as  a  telegraph 
operator  gave  him  a  varied  experience  in 
many  places  and  led  him  to  confine  his  study 
and  experiments  to  electrical  problems.     The 

167 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

possibilities  of  electricity  became  the  concern 
of  bis  working-boTirs.  ^^Cbemical  experiments 
wbicb  bad  been  my  first  love  took  on  tbe  nature 
of  boliday  excursions, ' '  he  bas  said. 

At  tbis  time  be  developed  an  instantaneous 
vote-recording  machine  designed  to  save  Con- 
gress tbe  time  of  roU-calls.  It  was  an  entire 
success ;  its  only  fault  was  tbat  it  was  too  per- 
fect for  imperfect  buman  beings.  Tbe  chairman 
of  tbe  congressional  committee  to  whom  Edison 
exhibited  his  model  said  solemnly:  *^ Young 
man,  if  there  is  any  invention  on  earth  that  we 
don't  want  at  the  Capitol,  it  is  tbis.  One  of  the 
greatest  weapons  in  the  bands  of  a  minority  to 
prevent  bad  legislation  and  gain  time  for 
further  consideration  is  the  roll-call. ' ' 

Edison  at  once  saw  tbe  truth  of  tbis  and  in- 
stead of  blaming  fate  for  having  led  him  off  on 
a  false  trail  be  said:  ^^That  first  invention 
taught  me  a  valuable  lesson,  for  I  determined 
from  then  on  to  canvass  the  need  or  the  demand 
before  setting  out  to  produce  a  supply  of  some- 
thing which  might  not  be  able  to  secure  a  foot- 
bold  in  tbe  world. ' ' 

Tbe  next  years  of  many  inventions,  including 
168 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

important  devices  in  the  perfecting  of  the  tele- 
phone and  the  making  of  the  first  talking-ma- 
chine, gave  Edison  when  he  was  still  a  young 
man  of  thirty  a  world-wide  fame.  Then  he  put 
aside  his  fascinating  experiments  with  the 
phonograph  to  take  up  the  problem  of  lighting. 
The  brilliant  arc-light  was  in  general  use  in 
lighthouses  and  along  important  thoroughfares 
in  England  and  America.  This  light  not  only 
was  too  powerful  and  too  costly,  but  it  also  re- 
quired too  much  attention  for  ordinary  pur- 
poses.   Everybody  said,  however,  that  it  was  the 

only  practical  electric  light.  In  1879  Profes- 
sor Tyndall,  the  leading  British  scientist,  de- 
clared, ^  ^  Though  we  have  possessed  the  electric 
light  for  seventy  years,  it  has  been  too  costly 
to  come  into  general  use." 

This  was  a  problem  after  Edison 's  own  heart. 
' '  Just  wait  a  while, '  ^  he  said, ' '  and  we  will  make 
electric  light  so  cheap  that  only  the  wealthy 
can  afford  to  burn  candles." 

He  realized  that  the  lighting  of  houses,  stores, 
and  other  interiors  was  the  need  of  the  hour. 
So  he  devoted  all  his  thought  to  the  task  of  de- 

169 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

veloping  a  light  of  the  size,  cost,  and  conven- 
ience of  the  ordinary  gas-jet. 

Experiments  had  been  made  with  incandes- 
cent lights,  for  when  it  was  discovered  that  the 
electric  current  heated  the  wire  through  which 
it  passed,  many  electricians  dreamed  of  finding 
a  substance  that  could  be  raised  to  the  point  of 
incandescence  or  white  heat  without  being  con- 
sumed. In  1845  a  young  American  inventor,  J. 
W.  Starr,  patented  in  England  a  lamp  with  a 
strip  of  carbon  in  the  middle  of  a  vacuum  tube. 
He  made  for  exhibition  in  America  a  splendid 
cluster  of  twenty-six  of  these  lamps,  one  for 
every  State  in  the  Union  at  that  time.  He  was 
confident  that  he  had  the  light  of  the  future. 
But,  alas!  on  the  voyage  to  America  the  bril- 
liant promise  of  the  young  inventor's  life  was 
extinguished.  He  died,  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
five,  and  the  practical  development  of  his  idea 
died  with  him. 

It  was  thought,  however,  that  Starr  had  satis- 
factorily demonstrated  that  carbon  was  the  most 
favorable  material  for  the  incandescent  conduc- 
tor because  it  did  not  readily  unite  with  oxygen 
(i.e.,  it  could  stand  a  high  temperature  for  an 

170 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

appreciable  time  without  being  consumed)  and 
also  offered  great  resistance  to  the  passage  of 
the  electric  current,  which  meant  that  it  might 
quickly  be  brought  to  the  light-giving  stage. 
But  carbon,  even  in  the  best  vacuum  that  could 
be  devised,  was  burned  out  too  soon  to  make  the 
lamp  a  commercial  success.  A  mechanism  was 
arranged  to  supply  new  carbon  sticks  as  fast  as 
those  in  use  were  exhausted,  but  this  made 
necessary  globes  that  could  be  easily  opened; 
and  the  lamps  had  also  to  be  provided  with  a 
stop-cock  arrangement  for  connection  with  air- 
pumps  to  restore  the  vacuum  after  each  open- 
ing. Hence  the  incandescent  lamps  before  Edi- 
son's time  were  great  clumsy  affairs  and  furn- 
ished light,  without  refilling,  for  only  a  few 
hours. 

^'It  can  'the  done,"  said  the  leading  scientists 
in  America  and  England,  when  it  was  under- 
stood that  Edison  was  determined  to  produce  a 
practical  electric  light  for  houses. 

^*I  am  free  to  admit,"  said  Professor  Tyndall, 
*' Edison  has  the  power  to  grasp  general  facts 
and  principles  and  then  to  work  out  from  them 
some  new   practical    combination   before    un- 

171 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

dreamed  of.  But  as  I  know  something  of  the 
difficulty  of  the  electric-light  problem,  I  should 
prefer  seeing  it  in  his  hands  to  having  it  in 
mine. ' ' 

The  undaunted  Franklin-like  temper  of  mind 
that  would  never  allow  a  practical  problem  to 
remain  unchallenged  and  unsolved  was  at  work. 
The  child  who  had  flung  a  repeated  ^^whyf  or 
^'how!"  or  ^^how  do  you  knowf  at  each  easy- 
going answer  that  unthinking  people  gave  to  his 
questions  was  the  father  of  the  experimenter 
who  was  now  working  night  and  day  to  find  the 
ideal  substance  for  an  incandescent  lamp. 

Would  platinum  perhaps  meet  the  need? 
Many  tests  were  made  before  he  was  satisfied 
that  the  answer  to  the  riddle  was  not  tangled  in 
the  coil  of  a  web-like  thread  of  this  grayish 
wire.  And  now  carbon.  If  a  delicate  enough 
filament  could  be  produced,  might  it  not  be  en- 
closed in  an  air-tight  tube  and  so  be  given  life 
for  a  longer  time  than  people  had  dreamed  pos- 
sible ?  After  many  attempts,  each  leading  to  a 
failure  which  whetted  his  appetite  for  new  ex- 
periments, he  discovered  that  a  delicate,  hair- 
like   thread    of   carbon    seized    and   held   the 

172 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

bright  light  of  the  electric  current  in  a  way  that 
might  well  be  called  ^^ white  magic/'  He  had 
succeeded  in  sealing  in  a  glass  globe  from  which 
the  air  was  exhausted  a  loop  of  carbonized  cot- 
ton thread  which  glowed  with  a  wonderful  soft 
radiance.  Upon  this  tiny  thread  hung  the  key 
to  the  problem  of  the  world's  light.  That  thread, 
like  the  one  which  Ariadne  gave  to  her  hero  in 
the  myth  of  the  Slaying  of  the  Minotaur,  led 
Edison  through  a  new  labyrinth  of  endeavor. 
He  was  sure  that  ther^  must  be  some  substance 
even  better  than  the  cotton  thread.  That  would 
do  for  a  beginning,  as  a  clue,  but  it  pointed  on  to 
something  that  would  give  even  more  remark- 
able results.  He  tried  carbonized  paper,  card- 
board, tissue-paper  wrought  into  fairy-like  fila- 
ments. Then  various  kinds  of  fibers  from  every 
imaginable  substance,— flax,  cocoanut  hair,  cel- 
luloid, and  all  sorts  of  wood,  stems  of  plants  and 
grasses.  It  was  as  if  he  were  calling  up  for 
question  all  the  growing  things  of  earth.  Noth- 
ing that  came  to  hand  was  safe  from  experi- 
ment. 

One  day  he  picked  up  a  palm-leaf  fan  and  tore 
off  a  strip  from  its  bamboo  edge.  This  was  tried 

173 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

as  hundreds  of  other  things  had  been  tried.  A 
slender  bamboo  thread  was  carbonized  and  en- 
closed in  a  globe,  and  at  last  here  was  the  better 
thing  which  he  had  sought. 

No  sooner  was  Edison  convinced  that  there 
was  something  about  bamboo  which  seemed  to 
make  it  the  destined  light-giver,  than  he  de- 
termined to  scour  the  lands  that  produced  this 
wood  to  obtain  the  best  varieties  for  his  pur- 
pose. A  messenger  was  despatched  to  China 
and  Japan  to  collect  a"^  many  specimens  of 
bamboo  as  were  to  be  found  there.  Hampers 
of  samples  were  shipped  to  Edison's  laboratory 
in  New  Jersey,  where  fibers  from  each  were 
tested.  In  this  game  of  survival  of  the  fittest  a 
certain  Japanese  variety  won,  and  arrange- 
ments were  made  with  an  enterprising  farmer 
of  Nippon  to  ship  a  steady  supply  of  the  selected 
kind. 

But  even  now  Edison  was  not  satisfied.  *  ^How 
do  I  know  but  that  there  is  still  in  some  spot  of 
earth  an  even  better  substance, '^  he  thought. 
And  he  went  on  with  his  search  through  other 
lands  and  the  far  islands  of  the  sea.  A  hardy 
adventurer  with  the  perseverance  of  the  true 

174 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

scientist,  Mr.  Frank  McGowan,  wandered 
through  the  vast  jungles  of  the  Amazon  in  the 
cause.  Then  to  Montevideo,  up  the  Kiver  de  la 
Plata,  through  Argentine,  Paraguay,  and  south- 
ern Brazil  he  went,  fighting  wild  animals  and 
Indians,  encountering  poisonous  insects,  rep- 
tiles, fever,  hunger,  and  thirst.  No  hero  of  myth 
or  legend  in  search  of  the  Golden  Fleece  or  the 
Enchanted  Apples  of  the  Hesperides,  endured 
more  than  did  the  searcher  for  the  wood  fiber 
that  should  serve  as  the  slave  of  the  Edison 
lamp. 

And  still  the  inventor  went  on  with  the  quest ! 
One  day  Mr.  James  R.  Eicalton,  principal  of  a 
school  in  Maplewood,  New  Jersey,  who  had  con- 
siderable reputation  as  a  naturalist  and  travel- 
er, was  asked  by  Edison  if  he  were  willing  to 
carry  on  the  search  in  the  Orient. 

**Are  you  in  the  mood  for  a  vacation  I' '  asked 
Mr.  Edison,  looking  quizzically  at  the  school- 
master. ^  ^  I  want  a  man  to  ransack  all  the  tropi- 
cal jungles  of  the  East,  to  find  a  better  fiber  for 
my  lamp.  I  expect  it  to  be  found  in  the  palm 
or  bamboo  family.  How  would  you  like  the 
jobr' 

175 


CX)NQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

**It  suits  me,"  was  the  prompt  reply. 

**Can  you  go  to-morrow  f 

**Well,  there  are  the  little  details  of  getting  a 
leave  of  absence  from  my  board  of  education 
and  finding  a  substitute  to  take  my  place/'  said 
Mr.  Eicalton.  *^How  long  shall  I  plan  to  be 
away?" 

**How  can  I  tell?"  demanded  Edison;  *^ per- 
haps six  months ;  perhaps  six  years.  No  matter 
how  long  it  takes,  find  the  right  thing." 

The  schoolmaster  made  his  plans  and  then 
took  a  lesson  from  the  Wizard  in  methods  of  try- 
ing out  the  specimens  of  bamboo  which  he 
should  find.  Let  us  quote  from  Mr.  Eicalton 's 
own  account  of  his  journey : 

It  so  happened  that  the  day  I  set  out  fell  on  Washing- 
ton's birthday,  and  I  suggested  to  my  boys  and  girls  at 
school  that  they  make  a  line  across  the  station  platform 
near  the  school  at  Maplewood,  and  from  this  line  I  would 
start  eastward  around  the  world,  and  if  good  fortune  should 
bring  me  back  I  would  meet  them  from  the  westward  at  the 
same  line.  As  I  had  often  made  them  toe  the  scratch,  for 
once  they  were  only  too  well  pleased  to  have  me  toe  the 
line  for  them. 

This  was  done,  and  I  sailed  via  England  and  the  Suez 
Canal  to  Ceylon,  that  fair  isle  to  which  Sinbad  the  Sailor 
made  his  sixth  voyage,  picturesquely  referred  to  in  history 
as  the  brightest  gem  in  the  British  Colonial   Crown.     I 

176 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

knew  Ceylon  to  be  eminently  tropical;  I  knew  it  to  be  rich 
in  many  varieties  of  the  bamboo  family,  which  has  been 
called  the  King  of  the  Grasses ;  and  in  this  family  I  had  most 
hope  of  finding  the  desired  fiber.  Weeks  were  spent  in  this 
paradisaical  isle.  Every  part  was  visited.  Native  ,wood 
craftsmen  were  offered  a  premium  on  every  new  species 
brought  in,  and  in  this  way  nearly  a  hundred  species  were 
tested,  a  greater  number  than  was  found  in  any  other 
country.  One  of  the  best  specimens  tested  in  the  entire 
trip  around  the  world  was  found  first  in  Ceylon  although 
later  in  Burmah.  .  .  . 

From  Ceylon  I  proceeded  to  India,  then  to  Burmah, 
where  the  Giant  Bamboo  already  mentioned  is  found  also; 
but  beside  it  no  superior  varieties  were  found.  After  com- 
pleting the  tour  of  the  Malay  Peninsula  I  had  planned  to 
visit  Java  and  Borneo;  but  having  found  in  the  Malay  Pe- 
ninsula and  in  Ceylon  a  bamboo  fiber  which  averaged  a  test 
from  one  to  two  hundred  per  cent  better  than  that  in  use  at 
the  lamp  factory,  I  decided  it  was  unnecessary  to  visit  these 
countries  or  New  Guinea,  as  my  "Eureka"  had  already 
been  established,  and  that  I  would  therefore  set  forth  over 
the  return  to  the  western  hemisphere,  searching  China  and 
Japan  on  the  way.  The  rivers  in  southern  China  brought 
down  to  Canton  bamboos  of  many  species,  where  this  won- 
drously  utilitarian  reed  enters  very  largely  into  the  indus- 
trial life  of  the  people,  and  not  merely  into  the  industrial 
life  but  even  into  the  culinary  arts,  for  bamboo  sprouts  are 
a  universal  vegetable  in  China;  but  among  all  the  bamboos 
of  China  I  found  none  of  super-excellence  in  carbonizing 
qualities.  Japan  came  next  in  the  succession  of  countries 
to  be  explored,  but  there  the  work  was  much  simplified, 
from  the  fact  that  the  Tokio  Museum  contains  a  complete 
classified  collection  of  all  the  different  species  in  the  Em- 
pire, and  there  samples  could  be  obtained  and  tested. 

Now  the  last  of  the  important  bamboo-producing  coun- 

177 


CONQUESTS  OP  INVENTION 

tries  in  the  globe  circuit  had  been  done  and  the  home  lap 
was  in  order;  the  broad  Pacific  was  spanned  in  fourteen 
days;  my  natal  continent  in  six;  and  on  the  22nd  of  Feb- 
ruary, on  the  same  day,  at  the  same  hour,  at  the  same 
minute,  one  year  to  a  second,  "Little  Maud,'^  a  sweet  maid 
of  the  school,  led  me  across  the  line  which  completed  the 
circuit  of  the  globe,  and  where  I  was  greeted  with  the 
cheers  of  my  boys  and  girls.  I  at  once  reported  to  Mr. 
Edison,  whose  manner  of  greeting  my  return  was  as  char- 
acteristic of  the  man  as  his  summary  and  matter-of-fact 
manner  of  my  dispatch.  His  little  catechism  of  curious 
inquiry  was  embraced  in  four  small  words — ^with  his  usual 
pleasant  smile  he  extended  his  hand  and  said:  "Did  you 
get  itf^  This  was  surely  a  summing  up  of  a  year's  ex- 
ploration not  less  laconic  than  Caesar's  review  of  his  Gallic 
campaign.  When  I  replied  that  I  had,  but  that  he  must 
be  the  final  judge  of  what  I  had  found,  he  said  that  during 
my  absence  he  had  succeeded  in  making  an  artificial  car- 
bon which  was  meeting  the  requirements  satisfactorily;  so 
well,  indeed,  that  I  believe  no  practical  use  was  ever  made 
of  the  bamboo  fibers  thereafter.* 

It  miglit  be  asked,  Did  Edison  regret  tlie 
nine  years  of  experimentation  and  the  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  which  his  use  of  bamboo 
filaments  had  cost  him  when  he  discovered  a 
way  of  producing  artificial  carbon  much  better 
than  that  furnished  by  any  plant  fiber?  Never 
for  a  moment  does  he  count  that  time  lost  which 

*  From  Dyer  and  Martin's  Life  of  Edison,  New  York: 
Harper  &  Brothers. 

178 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

has  been  given  to  putting  each  factor  of  his 
problems  to  the  test. 

For  many  years  the  carbon  light  seemed  to 
answer  all  purposes.  Then  metals  were  again 
tried.  To-day  the  best  lights  are  made  from 
tantalun  and  tungsten. 

The  story  of  the  carbon  light  is  given  here 
because  it  shows  in  a  dramatic  way  the  character 
and  methods  of  work  of  the  great  inventor.  He 
is  always  asking  questions  and  where  most 
people  accept  as  final  the  opinions  or  state- 
ments of  others,  he  never  regards  a  point  set- 
tled or  takes  a  thing  for  granted  until  he  has 
made  a  practical  test.  And  in  his  tests  he  leaves 
no  stone  unturned,  no  corner  of  possibility  un- 
explored. 

After  Edison  had  made  painstakingly  nine, 
thousand  experiments  on  his  storage  battery, 
and  was  still  seeking  the  right  factors  for  suc- 
cess, one  of  his  assistants  remarked  sympatheti- 
cally, as  he  looked  at  the  pile  of  note-books  con- 
taining the  story  of  the  fruitless  quest  up  to 
that  point,  **Is  n't  it  a  shame  all  this  work  and 
no  results  r' 

^^Eesultsl"  exclaimed  Edison,  *^Why,  man, 
179 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

I  have  gotten  a  lot  of  results !  I  know  several 
thousand  things  that  won't  work." 

Trials,  then,  never  meant  discouragement  but 
the  clearing  of  the  way  for  the  next  thing  in  or- 
der. ' '  The  only  way  to  keep  ahead  of  the  pro- 
cession is  to  experiment,"  he  say 6.  *^Stop  ex- 
perimenting and  you  go  backward.  If  anything 
goes  wrong,  experiment  until  you  get  to  the 
very  bottom  of  the  trouble." 

After  some  ten  thousand  experiments  with 
the  storage  battery  the  happy  combination 
sought  seemed  won  at  last.  The  manufacture 
of  batteries  was  going  forward  merrily.  Then 
one  day  the  order  came  from  the  master  to 
scrap  the  lot  and  stop  the  work  until  certain 
further  improvements  had  been  made. 

^*Then,"  said  one  of  his  laboratory  helpers, 
*  *  came  another  series  of  experiments  that  lasted 
over  five  years.  But  secrets  have  to  be  long- 
winded  and  roost  high  if  they  want  to  get  away 
when  the  *01d  Man'  goes  hunting  for  them. 
He  doesn't  get  mad  when  he  misses  them,  but 
just  keeps  on  smiling  and  firing  and  usually 
brings  them  into  camp. 

**That  's  what  he  did  with  the  battery,  add- 
180 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

ing  improvements  here  and  there  until  now  we 
have  a  finer  battery  than  we  ever  expected.'^ 

No  expense  is  spared  that  may  mean  success 
to  an  experiment  and  so  progress  in  the  pursuit 
of  knowledge.  The  thrift  of  the  master  is  never 
a  hoarding  of  resources  but  conservation  and 
use  to  the  best  advantage.  '  *  Millions  for  prog- 
ress but  not  one  cent  for  stupid  waste, '^  is  the 
slogan  of  this  Franklin  of  our  day.  He  uses  in 
his  laboratory  still  some  strips  of  platinum  that 
he  rescued  when  a  lad  in  his  teens  from  some 
batteries  abandoned  as  junk  in  a  freight-yard  in 
Canada.  He  has,  however,  embarked  all  of  his 
capital  in  more  than  one  venture,  as  when  he 
spent  over  a  million  dollars  in  the  attempt  to 
extract  ores  from  powdered  rock  by  magnets. 
When  experiments  finally  convinced  him  that 
the  time  was  not  ripe  to  make  his  plan  a  com- 
mercial success,  he  came  up  with  the  smiling 
challenge  to  fate,  **  Well,  now  for  the  next  thing. 
It  's  all  for  some  good.  Keeps  me  from  getting 
a  big  head.  We  learned  a  great  deal  and  it 
will  be  of  benefit  some  day  perhaps." 

The  bulldog  grip  with  which  Edison  seizes 
and  holds  a  problem  which  he  attacks  is  shown 

181 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

in  the  following  incident.  One  of  his  engineers, 
whom  he  had  set  to  work  on  a  certain  problem, 
reported  shortly  with  three  drawings  which 
Edison  examined  and  set  aside  as  useless. 

**Well,  then,"  said  the  engineer,  '^that  's  too 
bad  because  there  's  nothing  else  to  do.'' 

**Do  you  mean,"  said  Edison,  wheeling  quick- 
ly and  looking  the  man  full  in  the  face,  *Hhat 
these  drawings  represent  the  only  way  to  do 
this  work  I" 

*'I  certainly  do,"  replied  the  engineer  un- 
flinchingly. That  was  on  Saturday.  When  the 
**01d  Man"  appeared  at  his  works  on  Monday 
morning  he  placed  on  the  engineer's  desk 
sketches  showing  forty-eight  possible  ways 
of  meeting  the  situation,  one  of  which  was  sin- 
gled out,  slightly  modified  and  put  into  success- 
ful practice. 

Edison's  faithfulness  to  an  idea  is  shown  in 
the  way  he  developed  his  phonograph,  which 
was  put  aside  for  ten  years  while  he  worked  out 
the  problem  of  lighting.  Then,  as  he  developed 
the  making  of  moving  pictures,  he  dreamed  of 
combining  the  film  and  the  phonograph  in  a  way 
to  make  the  screen  people  talk.     Great  diffi- 

182 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

culties  were  encountered:  As — to  mention  but 
one — light  and  sound  travel  at  different  rates 
and  one  cannot  ^* register''  joy  or  sorrow  for 
the  camera  at  the  same  moment  that  a  record 
is  being  made  of  the  spoken  words.  That  is, 
however,  one  of  the  interesting  problems  that 
Mr.  Edison  keeps  with  him, — a  possible  triumph 
for  some  to-morrow  that  will  crown  with  suc- 
cess the  experiments  of  many  hopeful  and  busy 
yesterdays. 

In  the  same  way  he  has  worked  to  make  really 
worth-while  moving  pictures  that  will  teach 
while  they  amuse.  To  do  this  he  has  gone  out- 
side of  studios  and  laboratories  and  studied 
children.  Gathering  up  a  group  of  small  boys, 
for  instance,  he  looks  at  a  ^'feature''  with  them, 
trying  to  see  it  through  their  eyes  and  get  in  this 
way  the  point  of  view,  let  us  say,  of  the  ten- 
year-old  world. 

As  the  matter  of  lighting  the  homes  of  people 
forced  the  inventor  to  put  on  the  shelf  for  a 
while  his  fascinating  talking-machine,  so  the 
great  war  forced  him  to  lay  aside  many  inter- 
esting schemes  to  take  up  the  life-and-death 
matters  of  national  defense.    As  Chairman  of 

183 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

the  Naval  Consulting  Board  lie  **did  his  bit," 
developing  ways  of  meeting  the  submarine  peril. 
An  apparatus  was  developed  that  could  detect 
the  sound  of  a  torpedo  at  a  distance  of  four 
hundred  yards,  which  together  with  a  device  for 
the  quick  change  of  the  course  of  ships,  gave 
practical  protection  to  cargo-carrying  vessels. 
A  search-light  powerful  enough  to  go  through 
water  and  still  do  its  proper  work  was  called 
into  being  and  also  a  device  to  help  the  lookout 
men  detect  the  periscope  at  a  distance  by  shut- 
ting out  the  cruel  glare  of  the  sun  on  the  water 
and  at  the  same  time  making  the  sight  more 
sensitive. 

Edison,  the  chemist,  so  long  kept  in  the  back- 
ground by  the  demands  of  his  electrical  experi- 
ments, also  had  his  *  innings"  during  the  war. 
Some  important  substances  used  largely  in  the 
manufacture  of  drugs  and  dyes  had  been  im- 
ported from  Germany.  Could  America  learn  to 
make  its  own?  Here  was  a  practical  need  to  be 
met;  and  the  boy  who  had  once  found  in  the 
possibilities  of  chemicals  the  most  fascinating 
kind  of  play  now  turned  that  interest  to  good 
account.    After  eighteen  days  he  had  found  the 

184 


THOMAS  ALVA  EDISON 

secret  of  making  phenol  or  carbolic  acid  and 
at  the  end  of  the  month  his  works  were  tuned 
up  to  turning  out  a  ton  of  this  chemical  in  a  day. 

So  it  is  that  Edison  has  worked  through  a 
long  life.  When  asked  what  his  secret  of 
achievement  is,  he  always  says,  *'Hard  work, 
based  on  hard  thinking. ' '  Each  day  dawns  with 
fascinating  possibilities,  for  *'the  world  is  so 
full  of  a  number  of  things ! ' '  As  we  have  seen, 
he  goes  at  his  hard  work  with  all  the  spirit  that 
a  boy  puts  into  a  great  game,  and  each  day  is 
a  new  world.  *^ Edison  has  the  happy  faculty," 
to  quote  his  biographers,  ^  ^  of  beginning  the  day 
as  open-minded  as  a  child — yesterday's  disap- 
pointments and  failures  discarded  and  dis- 
counted by  the  alluring  possibilities  of  to-mor- 
row."* 

*  Dyer  and  Martin:  Life  of  Edison, 


185 


TRANSPOETATION  AND  PEOGRESS 


Binging  through  the  forests, 

Rattling  over  ridges; 
Shooting  under  arches, 

Rumbling  over  bridges; 
Whizzing  through  the  mountains, 

Buzzing  o'er  the  vale, — 
Bless  me!  this  is  pleasant, 

Riding  on  the  rail! 

Men  of  different  "stations" 

In  the  eye  of  fame, 
Here  are  very  quickly 

Coming  to  the  same; 
High  and  lowly  people. 

Birds  of  every  feather. 
On  a  common  level. 

Travelling  together. 

John  G.  Saxe. 


TRANSPORTATION  AND  PROGRESS 

FROM  the  first  wheel — a  mere  log  fitted  on 
a  rude  axle  so  that  its  rolling  could  be 
turned  to  account — to  the  best  carriages  of  a 
hundred  years  ago,  is  not  a  greater  step  than 
that  from  stage-coach  to  the  railroad.  The 
Romans,  who  extended  their  empire  largely 
through  their  conquering  roads,  brought  some 
portions  of  the  earth  in  this  way  somewhat 
nearer  to  Rome.  But  the  most  powerful  man 
could  not  outstrip  the  speed  and  the  endurance 
of  his  horse,  while  the  poor  had  to  plod  along 
on  foot.  Mighty  Napoleon,  at  the  time  of  his 
flight  from  Russia  to  France,  with  every  pos- 
sible advantage  at  his  command,  averaged  only 
five  miles  an  hour.  This  world-conqueror  of 
the  nineteenth  century  could  not  cover  the 
ground  any  faster  than  Caesar  in  the  first  cen- 
tury, B.  C.  Toward  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  however,  the  face  of  the  world  was 

189 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

suddenly  changed.  The  railways  reduced  dis- 
tances to  one  tenth  of  what  they  had  been,  and 
so  a  man's  power — any  man's  and  all  men's 
— ^was  as  the  strength  of  ten.  Peoples  before 
separated  were  brought  into  communication 
with  one  another.  Trade  made  all  men  neigh- 
bors. 

**I  have  lived  to  see  the  day  when  poor  men 
can't  afford  to  walk,"  said  George  Stephenson. 

*^I  rejoice  to  see  it,"  said  Doctor  Arnold  of 
Rugby,  as  he  watched  a  puffing,  chugging  loco- 
motive drag  its  length  of  rattling  cars  over  the 
peaceful  landscape.  **Now  is  feudalism  gone 
forever. ' ' 

The  changes  that  this  great  advance  in  trans- 
portation brought  to  human  history  may  be 
seen  most  strikingly  in  the  westward  expansion 
of  America.  The  fact  that  we  are  to-day  '  *  one 
nation  indivisible"  is  due  to  this  change.  Mr. 
Wells  says  in  his  ** Outline  of  History:" 

Europe  is  still  settled  in  boundaries  drawn  in  the  horse 
and  road  era.  In  America  the  effects  of  the  railway  were 
immediate.  ...  It  meant  there  the  possibility  of  a  con- 
tinuous access  to  Washington,  however  far  the  frontier 
travelled  across  the  Continent.  It  meant  unity,  sustained 
on  a  scale  that  would  otherwise  have  been  impossible. 

190 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  STEAM 
James  Watt  (1736-1819) 

GENIUS  is  the  capacity  for  taking  infinite 
pains, ' '  it  has  been  said.  Only  those  who 
care  so  mnch  for  one  thing  that  they  are  willing 
to  lose  everything  else  for  its  sake  can  take 
pains  without  counting  the  cost  in  time  and 
effort.  They  are  the  rare  ones  who  work  for 
the  work's  sake  without,  as  Edison  said,  **  watch- 
ing the  clock. ' ' 

James  Watt  was  a  rara  avis  of  this  sort. 

But  it  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  rare  bird  is 
often,  when  in  the  fledgling  state,  regarded  as 
an  ugly  duckling — ^by  every  one,  that  is,  except 
the  mother.  He  is  unaccountably  different :  that 
must  mean  that  he  is  badly  hatched.  So  at 
school  it  was  voted  that  Edison  was  ^^addle- 
pated,''  and  James  Watt  had  little  love  for  the 
learning  that  was  most  highly  prized  by  the 

191 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

wiseacres  of  his  day.  He  was  clearly  not  a 
^4ad  o'  parts."  He  cared  not  a  whit  for  Latin 
and  Greek.  So  the  schoolmasters  saw  in  him 
only  a  dull,  most  unpromising  pupil.  ' '  He  came 
from  a  good  nest,"  said  Andrew  Carnegie,  in 
explaining  how  this  **  duckling"  won  his  wings. 
His  father  was  an  upright,  thrifty  man,  a  suc- 
cessful shipwright  and  repairer  of  instruments 
of  navigation,  such  as  compass,  quadrant,  etc. 
His  mother,  said  one  of  her  neighbors,  was  ^ '  a 
braw,  braw  woman, — none  to  be  seen  like  her  in 
these  days." 

It  was  from  his  mother  that  James  Watt  got 
his  real  start,  despite  a  most  serious  handicap. 
For  he  was  a  very  frail  child ;  during  most  of  his 
early  years  he  was  seldom  able  to  leave  the 
house.  But  while  his  body  drooped  and  lan- 
quished  withindoors,  his  spirit  wandered  over 
the  heather-covered  hills  with  the  brave  heroes 
of  Scotland, — Eobert  Bruce,  Wallace,  and  all 
the  other  strong-hearts  whose  deeds  live  in  the 
old  ballads.  **The  heather  was  on  fire  within 
Jamie 's  breast. ' '  His  imagination*  had  found 
its  wings. 

So  from  his  mother  he  learned  the  delight  of 
192 


JAMES  WATT 

books.  Through  the  pages  of  print  he  saw  as 
in  a  magic  mirror  the  beanty  and  wonder  of  the 
world.  He  saw,  too,  that  it  was  not  in  the  splen- 
did past  of  romance — in  ^^the  glory  that  was 
Greece  and  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome ' ' — that 
the  most  interesting  things  were  to  be  found. 
The  bravest  hearts  beat  under  the  Scottish 
plaid.  There  was  no  wonder  like  that  of  simple, 
everyday  things. 

*^  James  Watt,  I  never  saw  such  an  idle  boy," 
said  his  aunt  one  day.  **You  are  well  enough 
now  to  learn  not  to  waste  time.  Take  up  a  book 
or  employ  yourself  usefully.  For  the  last  hour 
you  have  not  spoken  one  word,  but  have  simply 
taken  off  the  lid  of  that  kettle  and  put  it  on 
again.  Are  you  not  ashamed  to  be  spending 
time  in  this  wayf 

Jamie's  mother,  however,  seemed  to  under- 
stand that  such  hours  were  not  wasted.  She 
knew  that  one  learns  from  studying  things  as 
well  as  books.  Nor  did  she  scold  when  he  took 
his  toys  to  pieces,  but  rejoiced  with  him  when 
he  showed  that  he  could  put  the  parts  together 
in  a  new  way.  Of  all  his  playthings,  however, 
Jamie  liked  his  box  of  tools  best.    With  these 

193 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

he  early  learned  to  turn  his  ^Hhinks''  into 
things.  He  learned,  too,  from  his  mother  the 
delightful  possibilities  of  drawing.  Soon  it  be- 
came natural  to  him  to  put  on  paper  an  idea  and 
consider  it  from  different  points  of  view. 

*^You  ought  to  send  that  boy  to  a  public 
school,"  said  a  friend  of  his  father's,  reproving- 
ly, one  day,  *^and  not  allow  him  to  trifle  away 
his  time  at  home. ' ' 

*^Look  at  how  he  is  occupied  before  you  blame 
him — and  me, ' '  replied  Mr.  Watt.  The  lad  was 
at  the  moment  so  completely  fascinated  by  a 
problem  in  geometry  that  he  was  blind  and  deaf 
to  all  about  him.  He  was  thinking  quickly, 
eagerly,  and  then  putting  a  fence  about  his 
thought  with  swift,  sure  strokes.  He  had  found 
in  the  beautiful  exactness  of  mathematics  and 
in  the  play  of  mind  that  it  gives  a  joy  as  keen 
as  that  won  by  the  flight  of  fancy. 

It  was  soon  evident  that  the  sickly  boy  who 
could  not  run  and  jump  like  other  lads  had 
learned  to  use  his  hands  to  good  purpose.  The 
set  of  tools  that  his  father  had  given  him  be- 
came an  intimate  part  of  himself.  They  moved 
as  freely  and  as  surely  as  his  thought  or  his 

194 


JAMES  WATT 

fancy.  ^^  Jamie  has  a  fortune  at  Ms  finger- 
ends/'  said  the  workmen  in  his  father's  shop. 

It  was  well  for  him  that  he  had  his  fortune 
in  his  own  hands.  For  when  he  was  a  small  boy 
the  loss  of  a  ship  and  other  mischances  swept 
away  his  father's  capital,  and  it  was  necessary 
for  Jamie  at  the  age  of  sixteen  to  learn  a  trade. 
There  was  no  question  what  he  should  do.  His 
love  of  mathematics  and  of  tools  together  de- 
cided the  matter.  He  would  learn  to  make  the 
delicate  instruments  that  seem  to  think,  so 
mathematically  exact  are  the  results  they  give. 

To  Glasgow  he  went,  therefore,  to  serve  an 
apprenticeship  with  an  *^ optician,"  a  handy 
jack  of  all  trades  who  mended  spectacles  and 
fiddles,  and  other  musical  instruments.  This 
was  then  the  only  school  of  experience  that  the 
city  offered.  Another  door,  however,  opened  to 
his  touch  that  gave  him  just  what  he  needed. 
The  elder  brother  of  his  school  chum,  who  was 
a  well-known  professor  of  natural  philosophy  in 
Glasgow  University,  gave  the  boy  his  friendship 
and  the  freedom  of  his  library.  Here  he  was  for 
the  moment  satisfied. 

**But  it  's  London  that  you  should  have,"  said 
195 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

his  professor  friend  one  evening.  *^  Glasgow 
cannot  help  you  further  on  your  way  just  now.  '* 
At  that  time  the  journey  from  Glasgow  to  Lon- 
don, which  now  takes  but  eight  hours,  was  a 
toilsome  matter  of  twelve  days.  Small  wonder 
that  young  Watt  could  not  bring  himself  in  a 
moment  to  take  this  step.  Then  came  a  happy 
chance.  A  sea-captain  of  the  Watt  tribe  turned 
up  who  was  conveniently  ready  to  make  the 
journey  with  him.  So  together  they  set  out  on 
horseback. 

Here  in  London  was,  indeed,  the  school  of 
experience  in  which  he  must  make  his  way  by  his 
own  unaided  effort.  ^'Sink  or  swim,''  said 
Destiny.  *^Here  the  weaklings  go  to  the  bot- 
tom, while  the  strong  breast  the  waves  and  tri- 
umph gloriously,  winning  ever  through  the 
struggle  new  strength.'' 

** Serve  seven  years  as  apprentice,"  said  Cus- 
tom. ' '  Only  those  who  go  the  required  way  can 
be  master  workers." 

James  Watt  soon  proved  that  he  could  not 
only  keep  himself  afloat  but  make  his  way  with 
clean,  steady  strokes.  He  would  not,  however, 
agree  to  bind  himself  to  seven  years  of  ap- 

196 


JAMES  WATT 

prenticeship  when  he  knew  that  he  could  learn 
what  he  needed  in  a  twelvemonth  and  set  np  his 
own  business  in  Glasgow  at  the  end  of  that  time. 
At  last,  however,  an  instrument-maker  who  ex- 
amined some  of  the  young  man's  work  agreed  to 
take  him  in  and  let  him  learn  by  doing  under 
his  direction  for  one  year. 

Back  in  Glasgow,  Watt  again  found  himself 
challenged  by  iron-clad  custom,  which  disputed 
his  right  to  a  place  in  the  Guild  of  Hammermen. 
The  members  of  the  guild  jealously  guarded  the 
privileges  of  their  craft.  No  one  can  win  his 
spurs  as  a  skilled  worker  in  less  than  seven 
years,  it  was  decreed,  though  Watt  was  ready 
to  prove  his  skill  by  any  test  that  might  be  de- 
vised. 

But  just  at  this  moment  of  blackest  discour- 
agement opportunity  beckoned  from  a  door 
where  modest  James  Watt,  untaught  in  the  lore 
of  schools,  would  never  have  dreamed  of  knock- 
ing. Glasgow  University  recognized  that  good 
work  is,  after  all,  the  true  **open  sesame." 
When  thi^  young  man  proved  his  worth  by  mak- 
ing important  repairs  on  some  of  their  delicate 
mathematical  instruments  the  professors  ar- 

197 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

ranged  to  take  him  under  their  wing  by  giving 
him  the  use  of  one  of  the  college  rooms  for  a 
shop,  where,  besides  keeping  the  apparatus  of 
the  science  laboratories  in  repair,  he  could 
practise  his  craft  under  the  most  favorable  con- 
ditions. Here  he  worked  at  making  quadrants 
and  other  nautical  instruments,  and  when  there 
was  no  work  in  hand  for  ships,  took  in  divers 
jobs  requiring  deft  fingers.  ^^Many  dislocated 
violins  and  fractured  guitars,  if  entreated,  did 
he  mend  right  properly,''  so  we  are  told. 

*^The  best  proof  that  he  was  a  man  of  true 
genius  is  that  he  first  made  himself  master  of 
all  knowledge  bearing  upon  his  tasks,"  re- 
marks Carnegie  in  his  story  of  the  inventor's 
life.  In  his  university  room  Watt  was  ideally 
placed  for  study  and  research.  Not  only  did 
he  have  at  his  disposal  the  library  and  other  re- 
sources of  a  college  already  renowned  in  the 
field  of  science,  but  he  also  numbered  among 
his  familiar  friends  some  of  the  greatest  scien- 
tists of  the  day.  For  the  little  shop  proved  to  be 
a  convenient  place  in  which  to  stop  and  talk 
over  a  new  idea,  and  the  young  man  whose 
thinking  fingers  could  bring  the  most  stubborn 

198 


JAMES  WATT 

bits  of  apparatus  to  terms  was  frequently  a 
friend  in  need  to  the  learned  professors  who 
had  taken  him  in. 

^^It  is  the  story  of  the  lion  and  the  mouse/ ^ 
said  Watt,  in  response  to  the  warm  apprecia- 
tion that  he  won.  ^'I  am  the  one  to  be  grateful, 
— a  simple  mechanic  who  has  never  attended 
college.'' 

How  the  learned  men  looked  upon  this  modest 
genius  may  be  told  in  the  words  of  his  best 
friend,  Robison, — later  professor  of  natural 
history  in  Edinburgh  University.  ^*I  had  the 
vanity  to  think  myself  pretty  proficient  in  my 
favorite  studies — mathematics  and  mechanics — 
and  was  rather  mortified  at  finding  Mr.  Watt  so 
much  my  superior.  But  his  own  high  relish  for 
those  things  made  him  pleased  with  the  chat  of 
any  person  who  had  the  same  tastes  as  himself. 
...  I  lounged  much  about  him,  and,  I  doubt 
not,  was  frequently  teasing  him.  Thus  our 
acquaintance  began. ' ' 

One  of  the  things  that  the  friends  discussed 
was  the  problem  of  steam.  The  young  profes- 
sor thought  it  might  be  used  to  wheel  carriages. 
Then  the  matter,  which  was  to  Robison  a  bit  of 

199 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

more  or  less  idle  speculation,  seized  upon 
Watt 's  mind  and  gave  him  little  rest. 

^*I  recognized  that  steam  was  a  very  demon/' 
he  said,  ^*when  I  watched  the  cloud  pour  from 
my  mother's  kettle  and  wondered  about  the 
antics  of  the  lid.  I  should  like  to  take  a  holi- 
day from  other  things  and  make  some  experi- 
ments with  it." 

Then  Watt  discovered  that  the  university  had 
procured  for  the  use  of  its  science  classes  a  New- 
comen  engine,  the  most  recent  model  of  the  en- 
gines used  to  pump  water  out  of  coal  mines. 
But,  alas!  the  perverse  demon  refused  to  ex- 
hibit its  powers.  Eepairs  were  made  and  every 
sort  of  coaxing  experiment  tried,  but  still  it  re- 
mained obstinate.  Others  turned  from  it  in  dis- 
gust. '  ^  Nothing  in  it, ' '  they  said.  *  *  What  good 
of  bothering  further  with  a  clumsy  bit  of  junk 
like  that!''  But  to  Watt  the  difficulties  proved 
the  right  sort  of  spur.  *' Every  obstacle,"  said 
Professor  Eobison,  *'was  to  him  the  beginning 
of  a  new  and  serious  study,  and  I  knew  he  would 
not  quit  it  until  he  had  either  discovered  its 
worthlessness  or  had  made  something  of  it." 

In  working  out  this  problem  Watt  had  to 
200 


JAMES  WATT 

make  a  path  for  himself  through  unexplored 
country.  There  were  no  books  to  serve  as 
guides.  He  discovered  that  a  few  studies  had 
been  made  by  French  and  Italian  workers  and 
he  promptly  set  to  work  to  learn  French  and 
Italian  so  as  to  discover  what  had  been  ac- 
complished in  other  lands.  There  was  no  ap- 
paratus to  assist  him  in  his  experiments.  He 
made  his  own,  using  ordinary  druggist's  bot- 
tles for  steam-boilers  and  hollowed-out  canes 
for  pipes. 

So  the  work  went  forward.  Then  the  day  of 
discovery  dawned.  Watt  stumbled  upon  the 
law  of  latent  (i.e.,  hidden)  heat,  when  he  found 
that  steam  had  the  power  of  bringing  five  times 
its  own  weight  of  water  to  the  boiling-point. 
This  led  him  to  the  realization  that  much  power 
was  going  to  waste.  ^'If  I  can  only  seize  and 
harness  the  force  that  now  escapes,  I  shall  have 
learned  how  to  tame  my  demon, ' '  he  said.  At 
least  four  fifths  of  the  steam  in  the  Newcomen 
engine  was,  he  decided,  lost  in  heating  the  cold 
cylinder,  while  upon  the  remaining  fifth  rested 
the  entire  responsibility  of  moving  the  piston. 
Heat  was  constantly  wasted,  not  only  through 

201 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

the  opening  at  the  top  but  also  at  the  bottom 
through  the  process  of  condensing  the  charge 
of  steam  which  sent  the  piston  up,  in  order  to 
create  a  vacuum  and  bring  it  down.  How  could 
the  job  of  bringing  back  the  piston  be  accomp- 
lished in  a  better  way? 

Then  came  the  wonderful  moment  of  inspira- 
tion. It  was  so  beautifully  simple  that  he  won- 
dered why  he  had  not  discovered  the  secret 
earlier,  why  others  had  not  found  it  before  him. 
One  might  keep  the  piston  always  at  the  same 
temperature  by  condensing  the  steam  in  a  sepa- 
rate container  to  wMch  it  should  he  led  after 
each  stroke.  Just  how  this  was  to  be  done  in 
actual  practice  had  to  be  determined  by  pains- 
taking experiment,  but  Watt  went  forward  with 
joyful  confidence  because  he  knew  he  was  on 
the  right  track. 

It  was  while  he  was  taking  a  holiday  walk  one 
Sunday  afternoon  that  the  great  idea  was  won, 
and  as  Watt  afterward  related,  *'the  whole 
thing  was  arranged  in  my  mind. '  *  That  night 
his  dreams  were  run  by  steam, — steam  handled 
by  a  separate  condenser.    On  Monday  morning, 

202 


JAMES  WATT 

early,  he  began  with  the  best  materials  he  could 
muster  to  turn  his  dreams  into  reality. 

In  the  days  of  hard  work  and  frequent  dis- 
couragement that  followed,  Watt  owed  much 
to  the  help  of  one  of  his  university  friends,  Pro- 
fessor Black,  the  original  discoverer  of  the  law 
of  latent  heat  which  Watt  had  also  arrived  at 
through  independent  experiments.  This  friend 
made  it  possible  for  him — ^by  financial  aid  no 
less  than  by  his  absolute  faith  in  the  big  idea — 
to  devote  all  his  time  and  strength  to  the  mak- 
ing of  his  new  engine.  Standing  in  the  shadow 
beside  the  master  worker  whom  all  the  world 
praises  for  his  marvelous  gift  to  mankind  is  al- 
ways, we  may  say,  some  good  angel — friend, 
father,  mother,  or  wife — ^who  has  made  the 
carrying  on  of  the  work  through  all  difficulties 
possible. 

Honest  work  in  instrument-making  (despite 
the  unfriendly  Guild  of  Hammermen)  had  won 
a  harvest  of  success,  and  Watt's  business  had 
now  grown  so  that,  after  taking  in  a  partner 
with  capital,  he  was  able  to  keep  as  many  as 
sixteen  men  employed  in  carrying  out  the  or- 
ders that  came  to  him.     The  little  university 

203 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

shop  had  become  too  small  and  he  had  moved 
his  tools  into  new  quarters.  But,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  had  not  passed  beyond  the  friendship 
of  those  who  had  given  him  his  start  and  who 
now  enabled  him  to  carry  forward  his  experi- 
ments with  the  steam-engine. 

There  was  mnch  trouble  encountered  in  the 
making  of  a  satisfactory  model,  for  there  were 
in  those  days  no  workmen  skilled  in  the  way 
needed;  and  Watt  himself,  though  a  magician 
in  the  construction  of  delicate  apparatus,  had 
had,  as  he  said,  ^Very  little  experience  of  me- 
chanics in  great/'  But  he  set  himself  valiantly 
to  the  task  of  meeting  each  emergency  as  it  pre- 
sented itself,  and  it  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
an  adept  in  the  practical  use  of  tools — ^having 
a  fortune  in  his  fingers  as  well  as  in  his  inven- 
tive brain — that  his  efforts  at  last  commanded 
success. 

A  cellar  was  found  where  his  steam-breathing 
monster  could  be  accommodated;  but,  alas!  he 
snorted  defiantly  and  even  after  all  Wattes 
pains  to  get  perfect  joints  in  his  apparatus, 
openly  sniffed  at  the  cracks  in  the  seams  of  his 
harness !    However,  it  was  quite  clear  that  the 

204 


JAMES  WATT 

principle  was  right.  So  Watt  set  his  teeth  and 
decided  that  ^  ^  it  must  be  followed  to  an  issue. ' ' 
In  April,  1765,  he  wrote  to  a  friend:  ^^My 
whole  thoughts  are  bent  on  this  machine.  I  can 
think  of  nothing  else.'* 

Of  course  money  was  needed  for  pushing 
work  whose  reward  (if  one  were  ever  reached) 
lay  in  the  remote  future.  Here  Professor  Black 
again  proved  his  friendship  by  securing  for 
the  inventor  the  help  of  Dr.  Roebuck,  head  of 
the  famous  Carron  Iron  Works,  who  paid 
Watt's  debts  (a  matter  of  a  thousand  pounds) 
and  agreed  to  provide  capital  for  needed  experi- 
ments and  patents  in  return  for  a  two-third  in- 
terest in  the  invention. 

It  must  here  be  noted  that  Watfs  first  engine, 
like  the  Newcomen  and  other  earlier  models, 
had  a  perpendicular  movement,  being  designed 
for  the  raising  of  water.  The  boom  in  coal-min- 
ing at  this  time  and  the  ever-increasing  demand 
for  coal  as  a  fuel  in  the  smelting  of  iron  ore 
made  a  paying  engine  for  pumping  out  mines 
the  crying  need  of  the  industrial  world. 

It  is  interesting  to  see  the  natural  steps  by 
which  great  world-shaking  changes   come   to 

205 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

pass.  One  thing  leads  as  inevitably  to  the  next 
as  in  the  House  that  Jack  Bnilt.  The  heavy  de- 
mands made  npon  England  ^s  wood  supply 
through  the  use  of  charcoal  in  the  iron  industry 
despoiled  the  forests.  The  iron-masters  learned 
then,  none  too  soon,  how  to  use  coke,  which 
created  a  new  demand  for  coal.  The  opening  of 
mines  called  for  a  practical  pumping- engine. 
Watt's  improvements  on  this  engine  proved  that 
steam  might  serve  in  driving  machinery  in  the 
great  cotton  and  woolen  mills,  for  he  soon  saw 
that  the  up-and-down  movement  might  be 
changed  into  a  circular  motion  through  an  ar- 
rangement of  a  crank  and  a  fly-wheel.  When 
this  was  accomplished  it  was  only  a  matter  of  a 
few  years  before  it  was  discovered  that  the  ma- 
chine-driving engine  might  be  made  to  serve  the 
needs  of  transportation  on  land  and  water.  So 
it  came  to  pass  that  the  engines  for  Fulton's 
first  steamboat  were  made  by  the  Watt  firm  and 
the  forerunner  of  Stephenson's  locomotive  was 
made  by  William  Murdock,  who  was,  as  has 
been  told  in  an  earlier  chapter,  the  helper  upon 
whose  mechanical  skill  Watt  leaned  more  heav- 
ily than  upon  any  other  worker  in  the  building 

206 


JAMES  WATT 

of  his  engine.  The  use  of  coal  in  smelting 
further  led  to  a  new  process  of  making  wrought- 
iron  or  Bessemer  steel,  which  provided  the  ma- 
terial for  Watt's  engines  and  for  other  steam- 
driven  machines  of  the  nineteenth  century,  thus 
completing  the  cycle  of  steam. 

It  is  necessary  to  pass  over  with  a  word  sev- 
eral interesting  chapters  of  Watt's  story,  such 
as  that  one  in  which,  in  order  to  provide  for  his 
family  in  the  days  when  his  obstinate  ^*  mon- 
ster *'  seemed  determined  to  put  its  maker 
through  every  sort  of  trial  before  getting  prop- 
erly to  work,  the  inventor  took  up  the  work  of 
an  engineer.  For  Eoebuck's  business  had  fallen 
upon  evil  days.  His  coal-pits  were  flooded  and 
Watt's  engine  was  not  as  yet  able  to  meet  the 
emergency.  So  the  great  ironmaster,  quite  lit- 
erally unable  to  keep  his  head  above  water,  met 
financial  ruin.  He  could  not  pay  for  the  patent 
of  the  engine,  as  he  had  hoped,  and  once  more 
Professor  Black  came  to  the  rescue;  but  still 
money  was  needed  with  which  to  meet  the  daily 
demands  of  the  butcher  and  the  baker.  So  Watt 
struck  a  new  trail  as  a  surveyor,  having  ac- 
quired skill  in  that  work  while  constructing 

207 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

surveying-instruments;  and  lie  was  given  the 
commission  of  surveying  for  the  proposed 
Forth  and  Clyde  Canal,  and  other  important 
waterways.  His  work  on  the  Perth  Canal, 
which  meant  forty-three  days  of  hard  work 
through  forty  miles  of  rough  country,  brought 
him,  including  all  expenses,  only  four  hundred 
dollars.  No  work,  even  the  most  skilled,  com- 
manded a  worthy  hire  in  those  days.  For  the 
plans  of  a  bridge  over  the  Clyde  he  received 
only  thirty-seven  dollars.  From  all  of  his  engi- 
neering commissions  in  Scotland — among  which 
were  the  plans  for  docks  and  piers  at  Port  Glas- 
gow and  the  survey  of  the  Caledonian  Canal — 
he  got  little  more  than  enough  to  meet  the  frugal 
expenses  of  his  household.  ^^  Supposing  the  en- 
gine to  stand  good  for  itself,  I  am  able  to  pay 
all  my  debts  and  some  little  thing  more,  so  that 
I  hope  to  be  on  a  par  with  the  world, ' '  he  wrote. 
Watt  was  now  able  to  tide  over  the  hard  times 
that  came  to  his  venture  through  the  shipwreck 
of  Eoebuck's  business.  ^^My  heart  bleeds  for 
him,''  Watt  wrote,  **but  I  can  do  nothing  to 
help  him.  I  have  stuck  by  him,  indeed,  until  I 
have  hurt  myself." 

208 


JAMES  WATT 

A  new  partnership  was  formed  with  Matthew 
Boulton,  master  of  the  famous  Soho  Iron  Works, 
of  Birmingham,  who  agreed  to  cancel  a  debt  of 
six  thousand  dollars  which  Eoebuck  owed  him 
in  return  for  the  latter ^s  interest  in  Wattes 
steam-engine.  This  came  as  a  godsend  to  Eoe- 
buck's  creditors  as  well  as  to  the  grateful  in- 
ventor, who  wrote  frankly  to  Boulton  that  the 
engine  was  far  from  being  at  the  moment  a  pay- 
ing invention.  ^^The  thing  is  now  a  shadow,'' 
he  said.  ^^It  is  merely  an  ideal,  and  it  will  cost 
time  and  money  to  realize  it. ' ' 

He  had,  however,  come  to  the  right  place  at 
last.  At  Birmingham  the  best  mechanics  in 
England  were  to  be  found  to  help  turn  the  per- 
fect working-model  into  a  life-sized  paying 
steam-engine,  which  Watt,  the  inventor,  aided 
by  Watt,  the  mechanic,  now  brought  to  pass. 

Then  came  an  important  demonstration  of 
the  advantages  of  the  new  Watt  engine  in  actual 
practice.  The  Cornwall  mines  were  rapidly  be- 
coming unworkable  since  the  Newcomen  engines 
then  in  use  could  not  keep  them  free  of 
water.  Orders  were  received  by  the  firm  of 
Boulton  and  Watt  for  their  much-heralded  im- 

209 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

proved  engine.  It  was  a  crucial  moment  and  one 
fraugM  with  peculiar  difficulty,  since  the  New- 
comen  interests  were  openly  hostile  and  ready 
to  take  any  means  of  defeating  their  new  rival. 
Watt,  himself,  directed  the  placing  of  the  trial 
engine,  and  engineers  and  mine-owners  from 
many  parts  of  England  and  Scotland  as  well  as 
Cornwall  were  at  hand  to  witness  the  result. 
Hurrah !  eleven  eight-foot  pulls  a  minute !  That 
broke  the  record.  The  new  monster  pulled  with 
greater  strength  and  steadiness,  pumping  more 
water  than  the  other  engines  while  eating  only 
one  third  the  amount  of  coal  that  they  de- 
manded. Victory  was  complete.  Watt  wrote 
of  his  success: 

All  the  west  country  captains  are  to  be  here  tomorrow 
to  see  the  prodigy.  The  velocity,  violence,  magnitude,  and 
horrible  noise  of  the  engine  give  universal  satisfaction  to 
all  beholders,  believers  or  not.  I  have  once  or  twice 
trimmed  the  engine  to  end  the  stroke  gracefully  and  to 
make  less  noise,  but  Mr.  Wilson  cannot  sleep  without  it 
seems  quite  furious,  so  I  have  left  it  to  the  engine  men; 
and,  by  the  way,  the  noise  seems  to  convey  great  ideas  of 
its  power  to  the  ignorant,  who  seem  to  be  no  more  taken 
with  modest  merit  in  an  engine  than  in  a  man. 

The  inventor  had  at  this  time  found  no  mas- 
210 


JAMES  WATT 

ter  mechanic  to  whom  he  could  entrust  the  work 
of  setting  up  his  engines.  It  was  not  until 
William  Murdock  appeared  and  proved  himself 
that  Watt  was  freed  from  the  problems  of  prac- 
tical construction  and  the  nagging  business  de- 
tails that  wore  on  his  sensitive  spirit  above  all 
else. 

Then  Watt  was  able  to  devote  his  working- 
hours  to  the  improvement  of  his  great  invention 
and  to  making  the  rotary  engine  needed  in  mills 
of  all  kinds.  For,  as  he  said,  *^the  people  in 
London,  Manchester  and  Birmingham  were 
steam-mill  mad. ' '  In  1781  he  ^  ^  invented  certain 
methods  of  applying  the  vibrating  and  recipro- 
cating motion  of  steam  or  fire  engines  to  pro- 
duce a  continued  rotation  or  circular  motion 
round  an  axis  or  center,  and  thereby  to  give 
motion  to  the  wheels  of  mills  or  other  ma- 
chines.'' 

A  third  important  improvement  on  the  Watt 
engine  was  the  steam  indicator  which  drew  a 
diagram  during  the  stroke  of  the  piston,  thus 
indicating  the  amount  of  pressure  of  steam  and 
its  ratio  to  the  total  volume.  Engineers  could 
by  means  of  this  indicator  definitely  estimate 

211 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

the  power  and  control  the  work  of  their  engines. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  was  the 
Watt  engine — employed  later  by  Fulton — that 
made  steam-navigation  possible.  For  the  man 
who,  through  harnessing  steam  to  the  tasks  of 
man, — ^by  utilizing  the  latent  heat,  making  it 
perform  five  times  the  work  that  earlier  en- 
gines had  accomplished, — paved  the  way  for  all 
subsequent  applications  of  his  invention. 

In  1819,  James  Watt,  at  the  age  of  eighty- 
three,  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  quiet  churchyard 
beside  his  partner,  Matthew  Boulton.  Later, 
William  Murdock,  faithful  servant  and  friend, 
after  guiding  for  several  years  the  fortunes  of 
the  younger  Boulton  and  Watt,  who  were  carry- 
ing on  the  work  of  the  great  firm  their  fathers 
had  established,  was  laid  beside  them.  A  colos- 
sal statue  of  Watt  in  Westminster  Abbey  bears 
the  following  inscription  from  the  pen  of  Lord 
Brougham : 

Not  to  perpetuate  a  name 

Which  mast  endure  while  the  peaceful  arts  flourish 

But  to  shew 

That  mankind  have  learnt  to  honor  those 

Who  best  deserve  their  gratitude 

The  King 

212 


JAMES  WATT 

The  Ministers,  and  many  of  the  nobles 

And  commons  of  the  realm 

Raised  this  monument  to 

JAMES  WATT 

Who  directing  the  force  of  an  original  genius 

Early  exercised  a  philosophic  research 

To  the  improvement  of 

The  steam  engine 

Enlarged  the  resources  of  his  country 

Increased  the  power  of  man 

And  rose  to  an  eminent  place 

Among  the  most  illustrious  followers  of  science 

And  the  real  benefactors  of  the  world. 

Born  at  Greenock  1736 

Died  at  Heathfield  in  Staffordshire,  1819. 


213 


PIONEEES  OF  INVENTION 


When  the  hill  of  toil  was  steepest, 
When  the  forest-frown  was  deepest, 
Poor,  but  young,  you  hastened  here; 
Came  where  solid  hope  was  cheapest — 
Came — a  pioneer. 

WiiiL  Carleton. 


PIONEERS  OF  INVENTION 

THE  real  difficulty/'  said  Mr.  Edison,  *4ii 
each  advance  in  human  progress,  does  not 
lie  with  the  inventors  but  with  the  public.  The 
man  with  imagination — pioneer,  poet,  and  in- 
ventor— ^marches  in  advance  of  the  people. 
Sometimes  they  are  very  slow  in  overtaking 
him;  then  it  is  that  a  great  idea  may  have  to 
wait  years  before  it  can  do  its  proper  work  in 
the  world.'' 

We  know  that  the  hardest  battle  that  McCor- 
mick  had  to  fight  was  that  of  bringing  the  farm- 
ers to  a  realization  of  what  the  reaper  could 
do  for  them.  So  Howe,  after  he  had  made  a  suc- 
cessful sewing-machine,  nearly  starved  while  he 
was  waiting  for  people  to  wake  up  to  its  value. 
Each  new  gift  to  mankind  finds  unready  and 
even  unfriendly  those  it  would  help. 

So  it  happens  that  many  inventors  lose  heart 
and  never  carry  their  ideas  to  completion  and 

217 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

practical  success.  Unless  the  man  of  inventive 
genius  has  also  something  of  the  pr^^ctical  abil- 
ity of  the  business  man  and  the  shrewd  pro- 
moter, he  is  apt  to  see  the  fruits  of  his  dis- 
covery gathered  by  others. 

It  is  also  true  that  when  the  need  of  an  age 
leads  to  a  great  invention,  the  idea  takes  root 
in  more  than  one  mind  at  the  same  time.  Many 
experimenters  and  inventors  in  different  places 
had  constructed  harvesting-machines  when  Mc- 
Cormick  made  the  first  one  that  was  a  success  in 
practice  and  also  carried  it  to  the  point  of  com- 
mercial success.  A  clever  mechanic  named 
Hunt  made  a  successful  lock-stitch  sewing-ma- 
chine, but  abandoned  it  as  junk ;  while  Howe  en- 
dured poverty  and  privation  in  order  to  bring 
it  to  the  public.  Still,  it  was  due  in  large  part 
to  the  shrewd  advertising  of  Singer  that  Howe  ^s 
idea  *^ carried  on"  triumphantly. 

When  "Watt's  steam-engine  made  steam- 
power  a  practical  success  in  the  driving  of  ma- 
chinery, it  was,  of  course,  only  a  question  of  time 
when  it  should  be  adapted  to  the  needs  of  trans- 
portation. Several  men  were  working  at  the 
same  time  over  the  problem  of  the  steamboat. 

218 


PIONEERS  OF  INVENTION 

Many  Americans  believe  that  Eobert  Fulton  was 
the  inventor,  but  every  one  who  has  read  the 
story  of  Fulton's  life  knows  that  this  is  not 
true.  He  was,  however,  the  man  who  gave  the 
steamboat  to  the  world  by  making  it  a  practical 
success. 

William  Murdock,  it  will  be  remembered, 
made  a  satisfactory  model  of  a  locomotive,  but 
yielded  to  the  wishes  of  Watt  and  never  carried 
his  idea  further.  Trevethick  made  the  first 
traveling  engine  of  full  size  and  complete  work- 
ing-power, but  became  discouraged  by  the  diffi- 
culties he  met  and  decided  to  try  fortune  in  some 
surer  way.  It  was  left  for  George  Stephenson 
to  take  up  his  abandoned  idea,  remake  it,  and 
give  the  world  the  locomotive. 

John  Fitch  of  Connecticut  invented  a  steam- 
boat in  1785  which  carried  passengers  and 
freight  for  a  time  on  the  Delaware  between 
Philadelphia  and  Bordentown  but  it  was  aban- 
doned because  *Hhe  weight  of  the  propelling  ma- 
chinery left  too  little  displacement  for  freight 
and  passengers  to  enable  her  to  pay  expenses." 

The  first  steamboat  that  had  passed  beyond 
the  stage  of  experiment  was  the  Charlotte  Dun- 

219 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION  j/ 

'J 

das,  which  Fulton  saw  in  1801  towing  barges 
upon  the  Forth  and  Clyde  Canal  in  Scotland. 
It  was  later  abandoned  because  the  waves  made 
by  its  paddle-wheels  threatened  to  wash  away 
the  banks  of  the  canal.  But  it  had  clearly 
demonstrated  that  steam-power  was  a  success 
in  water  travel  and  Robert  Fulton  got  from  it 
several  points  which  guided  him  in  the  plans 
for  his  engine,  built  by  the  firm  of  Boulton  and 
Watt  in  1804  and  placed  upon  the  Clermont  for 
its  first  trip  on  the  Hudson  in  1807.  Andrew 
Carnegie  says: 

This  was  the  first  steamboat  ever  used  successfully  for 
passengers,  and  although  Fulton  neither  invented  the  boat 
nor  the  engine,  nor  the  combination  of  the  two,  still  he  is 
entitled  to  great  credit  for  overcoming  innumerable  diffi- 
culties sufficient  to  discourage  most  men. 

In  the  winning  of  the  new  world  of  steam- 
navigation  the  hardy  pioneer  had  to  follow  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  discoverer  and  subdue  the 
wilderness  of  doubt  and  hesitation.  Robert  Ful- 
ton, who  worked  first  as  inventor,  endured  the 
discouragement  of  finding  that  others  had  out- 
stripped his  efforts,  and,  realizing  that  the  real 
need  of  the  moment  was  the  bringing  of  the  in- 

220 


PIONEERS  OF  INVENTION 

vention  into  practical  use  by  overcoming  popu- 
lar prejudice  and  the  natural  reluctance  of  peo- 
ple to  risk  *^good  money''  on  a  new  venture, 
determined  to  bend  all  his  energies  to  the  task 
of  making  steam  travel  on  the  Hudson  an  ac- 
complished fact. 

All  honor,  then,  to  Fulton,  the  man  who  gave 
America  the  steamboat ! 


221 


THE  MAN  WHO   GAVE   AMEEICA   THE 
STEAMBOAT 

EoBEET  Fulton  (1765-1815) 

QUICKSILVER  BOB/'  the  boys  called 
him;  not  only,  perhaps,  becanse  he  was 
always  using  that  elusive  mineral  in  some  mys- 
terious experiments,  but  also  because  it  seemed 
to  fit,  in  a  way  hard  to  explain,  the  eager,  bril- 
liant lad.  For  while  Robert  Fulton  did  not  dis- 
tinguish himself  at  book  tasks,  and  was  never  a 
*^ bright  boy"  at  school,  he  was  always  learning 
from  the  things  about  him.  His  comrades  re- 
garded with  admiration  one  who  could  draw  pic- 
tures like  the  life,  and  make  for  their  flat-bot- 
tomed fishing-boat  paddles  cleverly  worked  by 
a  sort  of  double-crank  motion  much  easier  than 
poling. 

In  the  little  Pennsylvania  town  of  Lancaster, 
where    Robert    Fulton's    boyhood   was    spent, 

222 


EGBERT  FULTON 

firearms  were  made  and  collected  during  the 
Revolution.  Eleven  years  of  age  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  struggle  for  independence,  the  boy 
saw  much  in  those  next  four  years  that  made 
him  long  to  have  a  part  in  great  things.  Could 
he,  perhaps,  make  a  new  gun  that  would  help 
win  the  war!  In  1789  he  actually  succeeded  in 
making  an  air-rifle, — which,  however,  in  all 
probability  never  saw  active  service. 

But,  after  all,  the  boy  found  the  color  of  life 
more  interesting  than  gray  death  and  the 
sinews  of  war.  So  he  found  a  greater  fascina- 
tion in  making  pictures  than  in  trying  to  invent 
firearms.  He  learned  to  know  the  look  of 
things,  the  changes  and  surprises  of  light  and 
shade,  and  he  longed  to  master  the  cunning  of 
catching,  with  pencil  and  color,  what  he  saw. 
He  delighted  his  mates  by  his  clever  sketches 
of  the  Hessian  prisoners  of  war  quartered  at 
Lancaster. 

The  ill-starred  Major  Andre,  who  was  lodged 
with  Mr.  Cope,  a  neighbor  of  the  Fultons,  was 
an  artist  as  well  as  a  brave  man  and  gallant 
gentleman.  During  his  last  weeks  he  made 
lovely  sketches  in  color  of  the  fair  English 

223 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

conntry  he  was  never  to  see  again,  and  gave 
lessons  in  drawing  to  some  of  the  American 
boys.  Here  was  a  hero  who  stirred  yonng 
Eobert's  heart  and  fired  his  imagination. 

His  earliest  ideal  was  also  an  artist,  Ben- 
jamin West,  who  grew  np  not  far  from  Lan- 
caster and  had  been  a  friend  of  the  Fultons. 
Indeed,  some  of  the  first  pictures  painted  by 
the  master  (now  one  of  the  world's  great  artists 
in  London)  were  portraits  of  Fulton's  father 
and  mother. 

Eobert  loved  to  hear  the  story  of  the  poor 
boy  who  had  gained  renown  in  the  country  that 
he  knew,  by  painting  signs  for  neighboring 
taverns  and  pictures  on  poplar  boards,  before 
winning  fame  in  Philadelphia  and  London.  He, 
too,  would  be  a  painter  and  make  a  name  in 
the  great  world.  He  was  late  in  getting  to 
school  one  day  because  the  important  business 
of  pounding  out  lead  for  a  pencil  detained  him 
at  a  blacksmith's  shop. 

*^It  is  the  very  best  I  ever  had,  sir,"  he  said, 
displaying  his  pencil  and  his  excuse  for  tardi- 
ness at  the  same  time. 

'*No  doubt  about  the  good  pencil/'  retorted 
224 


Robert  Fulton 


EGBERT  FULTON 

the  schoolmaster.  Though  young  Robert  often 
sorely  tried  his  patience,  he  could  not  help  lik- 
ing the  lively  boy  who  found  the  happiness  of 
the  world  beyond  the  school-room  walls  so  much 
more  interesting  than  books. 

Indeed,  nobody  could  help  liking  Fulton. 
When,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  he  followed  in 
the  footsteps  of  Benjamin  West  and  went  to 
seek  his  fortune  in  Philadelphia  as  an  artist, 
he  had  an  ease  and  charm  of  manner  that  made 
friends  for  him  everywhere.  At  twenty  he  had 
so  far  improved  his  opportunities  for  study 
and  practice  in  portrait  work  that  he  was  well 
established  as  a  miniature-painter. 

The  first  mile-stone  on  the  way  to  a  larger 
life  was  the  opportunity  that  came  to  him  of 
painting  the  portrait  of  Benjamin  Franklin. 
The  interest  of  the  great  American  was  at  once 
won  by  the  talented  soldier  of  fortune,  who,  be- 
fore he  was  out  of  his  teens,  had  built  up  a 
successful  profession  and  was  looking  for  new 
worlds  to  conquer. 

*^How  did  you  manage  during  the  first 
months  before  you  had  persuaded  people — like 
me — that  they  must  have  you  make  their  like- 

225 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

nessesT'  he  asked,  while  young  Fulton  was 
working  away  at  his  easel. 

**At  anything  I  could  find, — drawing  plans 
for  machinery,  for  carriages,  and  even  for 
houses.  You  have  discovered  that  I  am  good 
at  making  plans  I  Then  there  are  always  signs 
to  paint,  if  you  know  the  signs  of  the  times ! ' ' 
said  the  artist  as  he  studied  the  friendly  eyes 
of  his  sympathetic  subject. 

^^And  you  made  your  own  way,  unaided, 
from  the  start?'' 

^^Why,  yes,"  replied  the  other  modestly. 
*^  There  was,  too,  the  added  incentive  of  send- 
ing money  home.  You  see,  my  father  died  when 
I  was  three  years  old,  and  my  mother  has  had 
a  hard  struggle  managing  for  ^ve  children.  If 
I  might  have  been  tempted  to  waste  my  days 
or  fail  to  hunt  up  opportunities  when  I  didn't 
see  any  right  at  hand,  I  could  n  't  when  I  knew 
she  needed  my  help,"  he  added  simply. 

Of  course  this  appealed  strongly  to  Poor 
Richard.  *^6od  helps  them  who  help  them- 
selves, young  man,"  he  said  cordially.  ''You 
have  already  begun  to  learn  the  truth  of  that 

226 


EGBERT  FULTON 

for  yourself  and  you  will  find  friends  a  plenty 
to  prove  it  further.'* 

And  Franklin  at  once  added  to  encouraging 
words  the  substantial  help  of  introductions  to 
other  Philadelphians  of  consequence  who  were 
likely  to  want  family  portraits  and  miniatures. 

^^But  it  is  in  England  that  you  will  get  your 
proper  start,  lad/'  counseled  the  great  man. 
^^Put  by  all  you  can  to  that  end.  A  penny 
saved  is  a  penny  earned,  remember.  I  can  give 
you  a  letter  to  Benjamin  West,  who  should  put 
you  on  the  way  of  becoming  a  real  artist." 

*  *  He  grew  up  in  Chester  County  not  far  from 
our  home,''  replied  Fulton,  *^and  my  father 
knew  his  father  well.  I  should  indeed  like  to 
follow  in  his  footsteps,  as  far  as  London, — and 
beyond,  to  success  as  a  painter." 

With  that  ideal  before  him,  Fulton  worked 
harder  than  ever,  with  the  result  that  early  in 
the  next  year,  when  he  was  twenty-two  years 
of  age,  he  had  saved  enough  to  pay  for  a  small 
farm  for  his  mother,  and  his  own  passage  to 
England.  He  had  besides,  as  capital  for  the 
new  start  in  life,  forty  guineas,  and  a  letter 
from  Franklin  to  Benjamin  West. 

227 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

During  the  next  four  years,  which  Fulton 
spent  as  a  pupil  in  West's  studio,  he  knew 
poverty,  though  never,  because  of  his  thrift  and 
his  readiness  to  turn  small  opportunities  to 
good  account,  was  he  in  actual  want.  A  letter 
dated  July  31,  1789,  to  his  mother,  shows  the 
economies  he  was  forced  to  practise,  and  also 
throws  light  on  the  lack  of  postal  facilities  be- 
fore the  days  of  steam  transportation : 

Write  small  and  close  so  that  you  may  say  a  great  deal  in 
small  compass,  for  the  ships  often  put  the  letters  ashore 
at  the  first  port  they  make.  Then  they  come  post  to  Lon- 
don and  I  have  often  paid  half-a-guinea  for  a  small  package 
of  letters  ...  so  if  you  can  send  me  a  pound  of  news  upon 
an  ounce  of  paper  I  shall  save  almost  a  guinea  by  it. 

The  next  years  of  Fulton's  life  must  be 
passed  over  with  a  word.  He  worked  earnestly 
as  a  painter  and  produced  some  pictures  that 
gave  real  promise,  but,  at  thirty,  he  decided 
to  give  up  canvas  and  brush  for  problems  of 
engineering.  As  a  boy  he  had  shown  marked 
constructive  as  well  as  artistic  ability,  and  he 
had  always  been  interested  in  the  possibilities 
of  improved  navigation.  Now,  feeling  doubtful 
of  ever  becoming  a  painter  of  the  first  rank,  he 

228 


ROBERT  FULTON 

decided  to  begin  life  anew  as  an  engineer. 
*^ People  certainly  need  better  waterways,''  he 
thought.  ^'I  am  not  sure  that  they  need  my 
pictures.'' 

For  five  or  six  years  he  occupied  himself  with 
problems  of  canals,  which  were  then  the  chief 
arteries  of  commerce,  inventing  a  **  digging- 
machine"  to  assist  in  their  construction,  and 
a  sort  of  inclined  plane  apparatus  to  lift  boats 
from  one  level  to  another. 

In  1796  Fulton  published  **A  treatise  on 
Canal  Navigation,"  in  which  he  said  he  hoped 
to  make  plain  the  numerous  advantages  to  be 
derived  from  small  canals"  in  developing  the 
resources  of  a  country.  He  sent  a  copy  of  the 
book  to  President  Washington  with  a  letter 
laying  before  him  his  plan  to  *^  bring  water- 
carriage  within  the  easy  cartage  of  every  acre 
of  the  American  states."  The  letters  of  Ful- 
ton to  Washington  at  this  time  make  clear  that 
the  project  of  the  Erie  Canal  originated  with 
him.  Nothing  came  of  his  inventions,  how- 
ever, and  the  special  pleader  for  better  canals 
would  have  been  in  dire  straits  to  make  a  living 

229 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

had  it  not  been  for  his  gift  of  winning  friends 
wherever  he  went.  A  letter  written  by  the 
daughter  of  Edmund  Cartwright,  the  gifted 
^^poet  of  many  inventions/'  shows  that  Fulton 
was  at  this  time  spending  not  a  little  thought 
on  the  matter  of  steam-navigation: 

Amongst  other  ingenious  characters  who  frequented  Mr. 
Cartwright's  house  may  be  noticed  one  who  was  then 
deeply  engaged  in  pursuits  similar  to  his  own,  but  whose 
claim  to  originality  of  inventions  have  not  been  very  will- 
ingly admitted  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  This  person 
was  Robert  Fulton.  .  .  .  The  coincidence  of  their  respective 
views  produced,  instead  of  rival-ship,  intimacy  and  friend- 
ship between  the  two  projectors,  and  Mr.  Fulton's  vivacity 
and  original  way  of  thinking  rendered  him  a  welcome 
guest  to  Mr.  Cartwright's  house.  .  .  .  The  practicability  of 
steam  navigation,  with  the  most  feasible  way  of  effecting 
it,  became  a  frequent  subject  of  discourse. 

In  a  letter  sent  to  Cartwright  from  Paris, 
Fulton  wrote,  February  16,  1798 : 

It  would  give  me  much  pleasure  to  make  the  produce  of 
your  mind  productive  to  you.  You  will  therefore  consider 
what  part  of  your  inventions  I  may  be  entrusted  with.  The 
steam  engine,  I  hope,  may  be  useful  in  cutting  canals  and 
moving  boats,  so  that  will  be  directly  in  my  line  of  business. 
By  the  by,  I  have  just  proved  an  experiment  on  moving 
boats  with  a  fly  of  four  parts  similar  to  that  of  a  smoke- 
jack,  thus 

230 


ROBEET  FULTON 


I  fiiiv.  this  applies  the  power  to  great  advantage  and  it  is 
extremely  simple  .  .  .  My  small  canals  are  making  many 
friends ;  which  business  I  shall  leave  under  the  guidance  of 
a  company. 

In  an  earlier  letter  to  Lord  Stanhope,  Fulton 
had  said:  ^^In  June,  1793,  I  began  the  experi- 
ments on  the  steamship;  my  first  design  was 
to  imitate  the  spring  in  the  tail  of  a  salmon.'' 
Learning,  however,  that  Symington  and  others 
had  carried  the  matter  of  steam-navigation  far 
beyond  this  point,  Fulton  gave  up  the  idea  for 
the  time  to  devote  himself  to  the  problem  of 
canals. 

He  spent  several  years  in  France,  hoping  to 
introduce  there  his  canal  project.  He  also  in- 
vented a  submarine  torpedo-boat  which  he  be- 
lieved might  find  favor  with  Napoleon.  To 
his  explosive  projectile  he  gave  the  name  of 
** torpedo"  from  the  torpaedo  or  ^ ^ cramp-fish, ' ' 
which,  travelers   reported,  had  ^*a  device  to 

231 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

beget  liberty  by  evaporating  a  cold  breath  to 
stupifie  such  as  either  touch  or  hold  a  thing 
that  touches  it."  The  experiments  with  these 
deadly  missiles  as  well  as  with  the  '^plunging- 
boats''  for  handling  them  showed  results  so 
far  in  advance  of  the  time  that  Bonaparte's 
scientific  experts  called  them  ''a  mad  scheme," 
and  the  inventor  **a  visionary."  *' 

In  England,  those  who  had  been  watching 
with  not  a  little  anxiety  the  threatened  alliance 
between  the  man  of  ideas  and  the  disturber  of 
the  world's  peace  who  called  himself  the  Man 
of  Destiny,  now  drew  a  breath  of  relief.  Should 
Britannia  investigate  this  new  menace  to  her 
rule  of  the  waves  and  perhaps  add  it  to  her 
means  of  defense!  The  letter  to  Fulton  which 
put  an  end  to  the  hope  of  assistance  from  that 
quarter  is  of  more  than  passing  interest.  His 
counsel  wrote : 

I  met  Count  Rumford,  who  told  me  .  .  .  all  the  particu- 
lars about  the  Royal  Institution.  He  talked  a  great  deal 
about  the  plunging-boat  and  said  that  he  and  Sir  Charles 
Blagden  [secretary  of  the  Royal  Society  of  London]  agreed 
that  its  effects  could  not  be  doubted,  but  that  it  would 
never  be  brought  into  use^  because  no  civilized  nation  would 
consent  to  use  it ;  that  men,  governments  and  nations  would 

232 


ROBERT  FULTON 

fight,  and  that  it  was  better  for  morals  and  general  happi- 
ness of  all  people  that  the  fighting  should  be  done  on  land. 

*^Well,  that  matter  is  put  aside,  for  the  pres- 
ent at  least,''  said  Fulton.  ^^I  had  hoped  to 
give  people  a  means  of  defense  for  their  coasts 
and  their  harbors  that  would  make  them  secure 
against  invasion  and  the  attack  of  war-makers. 
But  it  seems  intended  that  I  should  work  more 
directly  to  secure  the  liberty  of  the  seas  and 
the  happiness  of  the  earth  through  the  steam- 
boat. The  time  has  surely  come  for  better  and 
more  certain  means  of  navigation.  It  must  be 
made  a  success." 

During  his  years  of  experimentation  in 
Paris,  Fulton's  income  was  derived  from  a 
panorama,  **The  Burning  of  Moscow,"  which 
he  painted  and  installed  in  a  large  circular 
building  on  a  street  which  to  this  day  celebrates 
that  first  exhibit  of  the  sort  given  in  the  city 
in  its  name.  Rue  des  Panorames.  He  was  not  a 
stranger  in  the  French  city,  for  his  gift  for 
friendship  had  so  commended  him  to  Joel  Bar- 
low, the  American  poet  and  diplomat,  living 
at  that  time  in  Paris,  that  he  was  invited  to 
make  his  home  under  the  Barlow  roof.  *'Toot," 

233 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

as  this  new  friend  affectionately  called  him  in 
playful  allusion  to  his  steamboat  ambitions, 
was  introduced  by  Barlow  to  Robert  R.  Liv- 
ingston, minister  plenipotentiary  of  the  United 
States  to  France. 

This  was  the  time,  1801,  when  Spain's  ces- 
sion of  Florida  and  Louisiana  to  France  was 
causing  great  uneasiness  in  the  United  States. 
Would  Bonaparte  try  to  work  as  many  changes 
in  the  New  World  as  he  had  in  Europe?  So 
great  relief  was  felt  in  America  when,  in  1803, 
Napoleon,  hoping  to  raise  up  a  powerful  enemy 
to  England  as  well  as  to  get  money  for  his 
schemes  of  conquest,  agreed  to  sell  Louisiana 
to  the  United  States  for  $15,000,000. 

It  soon  developed  that  Livingston  was  vitally 
interested  in  the  steamboat,  to  which  he  had 
given  much  study;  and  he  was  not  slow  in 
learning  that  Fulton  was  a  man  of  character 
and  original  ideas,  combined  with  rare  mechan- 
ical experience  and  judgment.  After  a  dinner 
at  the  Barlows'  the  men  sat  far  into  the  night 
talking  over  what  had  been  so  far  accomplished 
by  the  steamboat. 

^'It  must  be  a  good  thing,''  said  Fulton,  his 
234 


EOBEET  FULTON 

deep-set  eyes  flashing  with  the  intensity  of  his 
conviction.  '^Of  course  I  know  that  after  the 
failure  of  better  men  than  I  am  to  make  steam 
pay  in  running  boats,  sensible  people  will  say 
I  'm  simply  one  more  fool  courting  ruin  to  in- 
sist on  trying  out  my  ideas.  But  I  believe  if 
we  could  make  some  trials  on  a  big  enough 
scale  to  have  them  really  prove  something  in  a 
practical  way  we  might  go  forward  with  real 
confidence. ' ' 

*^Let  us  join  forces  and  see  if  together  we 
can  steam  successfully  into  our  desired  haven,'' 
responded  Livingston,  and  the  two  men  joined 
hands  in  sign  of  their  new  partnership  of  in- 
terests. Mr.  Livingston  agreed  to  advance  ^ye 
hundred  pounds  for  the  construction  of  an  ex- 
perimental boat  to  be  put  on  the  Seine  for  a 
thorough  testing. 

But  Fate  seemed  determined  to  put  Fulton 
himself  to  a  new  trial  before  giving  him  the 
first  taste  of  real  success.  As  the  boat  lay  in 
her  moorings  ready  for  the  great  moment  when 
she  should  be  allowed  to  show  her  points  to  an 
amazed  world,  a  sudden  hurricane  descended 
upon  her  and  the  little  pioneer  craft,  not  able 

235 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

to  meet  the  strain,  allowed  her  heavy  engine 
to  fall  through  to  the  bottom  of  the  river. 

Fulton  was  in  bed  when  the  news  of  the 
wreck  was  brought  to  him.  He  hurried  out  and 
worked  all  day  without  pausing  for  rest  and 
food  until  he  had  succeeded  in  rescuing  the 
machinery.  It  was  said  that  his  lungs,  always 
weak,  never  recovered  from  the  strain  of  that 
day ;  but  his  spirits  showed  no  sign  of  drooping. 

**We  '11  have  another  boat  large  and  strong 
enough  to  handle  our  noble  engine  in  storm  as 
well  as  in  fair  weather,*'  he  said.  **The  moment 
of  triumph  has  only  been  postponed  a  little.'' 

When  that  moment  came  (in  August,  1803) 
one  of  the  Paris  papers  wrote  of  the  event  as 
follows : 

A  trial  was  made  of  a  new  invention,  of  which  the  com- 
plete and  brilliant  success  should  have  important  conse- 
quence .  .  .  During  the  past  two  or  three  months  there  has 
been  seen  at  the  end  of  the  Quay  Chaillot  a  boat  of  curious 
appearance  equipped  with  two  large  wheels  mounted  on 
an  axel  like  a  cart,  while  behind  these  wheels  was  a  stove 
with  a  pipe,  as  if  there  was  some  kind  of  a  small  fire-engine 
intended  to  operate  the  wheels  of  the  boat.  ...  At  six 
o'clock  in  the  evening  the  builder,  assisted  by  three  persons 
only,  put  his  boat  in  motion  with  two  other  boats  in  tow  be- 
hind it  and  for  an  hour  and  a  half  he  afforded  the  curious 

236 


EGBERT  FULTON 

spectacle  of  a  boat  moved  by  wheels  like  a  cart;  these 
wheels  being  provided  with  paddles  or  flat  plates  and  being 
moved  by  a  fire-engine.  The  savants  and  representatives 
of  the  Institute  who  were  on  one  of  the  boats  will  doubtless 
give  to  this  discovery  the  eclat  which  it  deserves;  for  this 
mechanism  applied  to  our  rivers,  the  Seine,  the  Loire  and 
the  Rhone,  would  be  most  advantageous  to  our  internal 
navigation.  The  tows  of  barges  which  now  require  four 
months  to  come  from  Nantes  to  Paris  would  arrive  promptly 
in  from  ten  to  fifteen  days.  The  author  of  this  brilliant 
invention  is  M,  Fulton,  an  American  and  a  celebrated 
mechanician. 

More  than  three  years  passed  before  Fulton 
returned  to  America  to  launch  his  steamboat 
there.  They  were  years  of  large  hopes  for  the 
submarine,  because  the  fear  of  an  attack  upon 
the  English  coast  by  the  all-powerful  Napoleon 
had  seized  the  people  of  Great  Britain  like  a 
panic ;  the  British  ministers  were  ready  to  meet 
the  inventor's  terms,  when  Nelson's  victory 
over  the  French  and  Spanish  fleets  at  Trafalgar 
put  an  end  to  that  nightmare  and  incidentally 
to  Fulton's  prospect  of  large  fortune.  He  had, 
however,  received  for  his  services  a  consider- 
able sum  from  the  British  Government, — not 
only  enough  for  his  immediate  needs  and  for 
the   purchase    of    engines    for   his    American 

237 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

steamboat,  but  also  a  sufficient  margin  so  that 
he  was  able  to  take  back  with  him  as  a  gift  to 
America  two  of  Benjamin  West's  paintings, 
^* Ophelia"  and  ^'King  Lear." 

Monday,  August  17,  1807,  was  a  great  day  for 
Eobert  Fulton  and  for  America.  On  that  day 
his  steamboat,  called  the  Clermont  after  Liv- 
ingston's estate  on  the  Hudson,  made  a  trip 
from  New  York  to  Albany  (a  distance  of  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles)  in  thirty-two  hours. 
Then  his  years  of  observation  and  experiment, 
of  careful  study  of  earlier  attempts  and  the 
reasons  for  their  small  success,  bore  fruit  in 
the  construction  of  a  thoroughly  practical 
steamboat. 

A  great  crowd  had  gathered  at  the  dock  in 
North  Eiver  to  see  the  end  of  *' Fulton's  Folly" 
as  they  dubbed  the  strange  craft,  but  as  it 
swung  around  into  the  channel  against  the 
wind,  overtaking  and  leaving  behind  sloops  and 
schooners  ^^as  if  they  had  been  at  anchor," 
ridicule  gave  way  to  amazement  and  then  to 
wild  cheers  of  excitement  and  enthusiasm.  The 
steamboat  had  come  into  its  own. 

After  that  first  epoch-making  trip  the  Cler- 
238 


EGBERT  FULTON 

mont  plied  back  and  forth  regularly  along  the 
Hudson,  and  before  long  the  steamboat  whistle 
heralded  the  new  day  on  the  other  great  rivers 
of  America.  For  all  the  centuries  since  first 
rafts  and  hollowed-ont  canoes  were  made,  man 
had  until  now  been  subject  to  wind  and  tide  or 
dependent  upon  his  own  galley-slave  toil  at  the 
oars.  Through  Fulton's  gift,  a  wonderful  new 
power  was  his,  and  a  new  world  was  won.  For 
in  fifty  years  the  steamships  that  plied  about 
the  globe  had  brought  the  remote  and  the  un- 
known near,  and  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  into 
relation  one  with  another. 

Success  proved  to  be  as  exacting  a  mistress 
to  Fulton  as  the  struggle  for  achievement.  He 
worked  now  as  tirelessly  to  extend  the  useful- 
ness of  his  steamboat  as  he  had  toiled  when 
his  friends  watched  with  alarm  his  daily  sacri- 
fice of  health  and  comfort  to  the  furtherance 
of  his  inventions.  A  letter  from  Joel  Barlow 
to  his  wife  shows  the  anxiety  these  friends  felt 
for  him  during  the  days  of  experiment  in  Paris : 

Tell  "Toot"  that  the  machine  of  his  body  is  better  and 
more  worthy  his  attention  than  any  other  machine  he  can 
make;  that  preservation  is  more  useful  than  creation;  and 

239 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

that  unless  he  could  create  me  one  in  the  image  of  himself 
he  had  better  preserve  his  own  automaton.  Read  this  lec- 
ture to  him,  or  one  better,  on  the  preservation  of  health 
and  vigor,  every  morning  at  breakfast. 

Fulton's  sudden  death,  February  23,  1815, 
when  he  was  at  the  height  of  his  powers,  de- 
prived the  United  States  of  the  services  of  one 
of  her  most  useful  citizens.  He  had  gone  as 
a  witness  in  a  dispute  over  the  construction  of 
ferry-boats  to  Trenton,  New  Jersey,  when  he 
was  detained  because  the  Hudson  was  partially 
blocked  with  ice. 

**We  may  as  well  use  the  time  in  seeing  what 
headway  is  being  made  with  the  repairs  on  our 
boats,"  he  said  to  his  friends.  The  exposure 
of  the  trip  across  the  ice  to  the  docks  resulted 
in  an  illness  from  which  he  had  but  partly  re- 
covered when,  against  all  persuasion,  he  in- 
sisted on  again  going  to  New  Jersey  to  see  how 
the  work  was  progressing.  This  imprudence 
cost  the  inventor  his  life. 

In  September,  1909,  America  celebrated  the 
Centenary  of  Fulton's  success  and  the  Tercen- 
tenary of  Henry  Hudson's  exploration  of  the 
river  named  after  him.     In  a  splendid  river 

240 


EGBERT  FULTON 

pageant,  calling  to  mind  the  triumphs  that 
three  hundred  years  of  civilization  and  prog- 
ress had  brought  to  America,  first  in  place  of 
honor  was  the  Clermont,  a  full-sized  replica 
of  which  had  been  built  for  the  occasion. 

We  have  in  the  contrast  between  the  little 
Clermont  that  cost  but  thirty  thousand  dollars, 
and  excited  the  wonder  of  all  by  her  speed  of 


The   **  Clermont ' '   and  its   mighty  descendant,   the 
**Lusitania  " 

four  miles  an  hour,  and  the  palatial  *^  Robert 
Fulton '^  which  cost  a  round  million  and  to-day 
makes  the  trip  from  New  York  to  Albany  at  the 
rate  of  twenty-five  miles  per  hour  (while  the 
fare  has  been  reduced  from  $7  to  $1)  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  progress  in  transportation 
brought  to  pass  through  ** Fulton ^s  Folly." 


241 


STEPHENSON  AND  THE  LOCOMOTIVE 

Geoege  Stephenson  (1781-1848) 

IT  is  a  fact  worthy  of  note  that  most  of  the 
great  labor-saving,  time-conquering  inven- 
tions have  been  made  in  the  workshop,  by  men 
in  the  ranks,  not  by  technical  experts  or  cap- 
tains of  industry.  So  it  was  that  John  Kay 
and  James  Hargreaves,  humble  weavers,  in- 
vented the  fly-shuttle  and  the  spinning- jenny 
that  brought  the  new  era  of  the  machine  in  the 
making  of  cloth,  changing  the  meaning  of  the 
word  ^^manufacture''  from  hand-made  to  ma- 
chine-made. Cyrus  McCormick  was  a  farm  boy 
who  had  known  the  heat  and  burden  of  swinging 
scythe  and  cradle  in  a  wheat-field  under  a  sum- 
mer sun.  Eli  Whitney  and  Elias  Howe  were 
ingenious  Yankee  mechanics,  and  James  Watt 
was  a  self-taught  instrument-maker.  William 
Murdock,  who  made  the  model  of  the  first  loco- 

242 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

motive,  was  a  practical  machinist,  and  George 
Stephenson,  the  inventor  whose  iron  horse 
made  steam  travel  an  accomplished  fact,  was  an 
unlettered  engineer. 

When  a  tiny  boy,  little  George  Stephenson 
loved  to  sit  by  the  furnace  fire  listening  to  the 
stories  that  his  father  loved  to  tell.  For  the 
grimy  fireman,  whose  task  it  was  to  stoke  the 
engine  that  pumped  water  from  a  coal-mine, 
could  tell  tales  of  golden  adventure, — of  slaves 
of  the  lamp,  magic  rings,  and  fairy  palaces. 
As  little  George  stood  near  in  round-eyed 
wonder,  he  could  see  in  the  glow  and  flicker  of 
the  flames  bright  lands  far  away  from  the 
smoke  and  toil  of  the  coal  country  where  he  was 
bom. 

But  it  was  not  alone  in  the  things  of  a  far- 
away and  long-ago  wonder  world  that  the  little 
lad  learned  to  delight.  On  a  Sunday  when  his 
father  had  washed  away  the  black  of  the  mine, 
they  would  often  walk  beyond  the  little  village 
and  its  colliery,  over  green  fields  and  hill  paths 
toward  Newcastle,  through  free,  happy  places 
where  birds  sang  and  small  furry  creatures 
scuttled  about  in  the  underbrush.     Once  his 

243 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

father  lifted  him  up  so  that  he  could  look  down 
into  a  blackbird's  nest  and  see  the  hungry  wee 
birds. 

^^They  're  all  for  worms  now,  but  think  of 
the  singing  that  '11  come  from  that  nestful  after 
a  bit,"  said  the  father,  who  could  whistle  like 
the  birds  and  bring  them  to  his  hands  for 
crumbs. 

Indeed,  the  birds  came  to  their  friend  when 
he  sat  at  his  cottage  door  and  even  sometimes 
flew  in  at  the  open  window.  In  winter,  flocks  of 
robins  would  come  about  his  engine  fire  after 
crumbs  from  his  dinner-pail  as  fearlessly  as 
the  children  gathered  about  him  begging  for 
stories. 

^^Old  Bob,"  as  the  neighbors  called  him,  was 
indeed  rich  in  the  lore  of  birds,  beasts,  and 
little  children.  But  it  was  hard  work  to  pro- 
vide food  for  six  bairns  on  twelve  shillings  a 
week,  and  George  was  very  happy  when  he  was 
able  to  earn  something  to  help  out. 

He  had  shown  that  he  was  a  manly  little  chap, 
ready  to  jump  forward  to  meet  a  need  when,  a 
lad  of  eight,  he  earned  the  fifteen  pence  that  his 
sister  needed  to  buy  a  bonnet.    She  had  taken 

244 


GEOEaE  STEPHENSON 

him  to  Newcastle  to  keep  her  company;  and 
it  had  been  a  happy  day  until  he  saw  the  tears 
that  came  in  NelPs  eyes  because  she  could  not 
buy  the  hat  on  which  she  had  set  her  heart. 

*^  Never  heed,  Nell,  come  wi'  me  and  I  '11  see 
if  I  canna  win  siller  enough  to  buy  the  bonnet,'' 
said  Geordie.  **  Stand  ye  there  till  I  come 
back."    And  he  was  off  before  she  could  speak. 

There  she  stood  until  her  fears  had  grown 
as  dark  as  the  gathering  shadows.  The  market 
carts  had  all  gone  clattering  away,  when  he 
appeared  breathless  but  triumphant. 

^^Here  's  the  siller  for  the  bonnet,  Nell,"  he 
panted. 

''Eh,  Geordie!"  she  said  fearfully,  ''but  hoo 
hae  ye  gotten  it?" 

''Hauddin  the  gentleman's  horses!"  he  re- 
turned. 

Soon  George  was  working  every  day  and  all 
day  for  a  regular  wage — twopence,  it  was — 
caring  for  a  neighbor's  cattle.  It  was  not  hard 
work,  and  the  barefoot  boy  could  make  friends 
with  the  birds,  gather  berries,  and  cut  whistles 
out  of  the  reeds  that  grew  by  the  brook-side. 
He  learned  many  things,  too,  in  his  open-air 

245 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

scliool;  lie  could  understand  the  language  of 
skylarks  and  linnets,  but  he  knew  nothing  of 
the  lore  of  books. 

Of  all  the  things  in  George  ^s  world,  how- 
ever, the  engine  ,that  his  father  tended  seemed 
the  most  interesting.  It  was  a  queer,  creaking, 
wheezing  monster,  but  that  made  it,  perhaps, 
the  more  interesting  to  the  child,  who  found 
something  friendly  in  its  '^talking''  ways  as  the 
pump  went  down  with  a  plunge  and  a  bump,  to 
rise — ^bumpety  swish! — as  the  water  was 
poured  out  with  a  rush.  He  longed  to  do  a 
real  man's  work  and  mind  the  engine  that  kept 
the  mines  from  being  flooded,  and  so  made  it 
possible  for  the  men  to  get  the  coal  out  of  the 
deep  black  pit.  It  was  a  proud  day  when  he 
was  given  a  job  as  ^'picker,"  to  sort  the  good 
coal  from  stones  and  dross.  He  had  now  a  real 
part  in  the  wonderful  mines  that  were  making 
England  great.  For  he  knew  that  the  coal 
went  to  the  coke-ovens  where  iron  was  made 
ready  for  man's  use. 

If  any  one  asked  George  what  he  wanted  to 
do  when  he  grew  to  be  a  man,  he  said  promptly, 
''Mind  an  engine  like  Feyther!"     The  little 

246 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

engines  wMch  lie  molded  in  clay  during  his 
play  hours  told  the  same  story.  And  when  the 
sturdy,  well-grown  boy  of  fourteen  was  pro- 
moted to  the  job  of  assistant  fireman  at  a  shill- 
ing a  day,  he  felt  that  he  had  won  a  new  round 
on  his  ladder. 

Despite  the  long  hours  of  hard  work,  the 
growing  lad  became  tall  and  strong.  There  was, 
indeed,  strength  to  spare  after  the  toil  of  the 
day,  for  exercises  such  as  wrestling,  throwing 
the  hammer,  lifting  of  weights,  and  other  mus- 
cular feats.  And  though  he  had  never  been  to 
school,  his  mind  was  growing,  because  he  was 
always  wide  awake  to  the  things  about  him. 

At  seventeen  he  had  proved  himself  both  so 
ready  of  hand  and  quick  of  wit  that  he  was 
made  *  ^  plugman ' '  of  the  engine  which  his  father 
fired.  He  was  now  special  guardian  of  his 
great  iron  companion  of  the  mines.  Besides 
tending  the  pumps  to  see  that  they  were  draw- 
ing properly,  he  must,  when  the  level  of  the 
water  in  the  mine  was  lowered,  drop  down  into 
the  shaft  and  adjust,  or  plug,  the  apparatus 
so  that  the  pump  would  draw  properly.  A 
plugman  was  also  the  engine  doctor  in  all  its 

247 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

minor  ailments,  with  the  chief  engineer  as  ex- 
pert adviser  in  case  of  special  difficulties. 

**I  am  made  a  man  for  life!''  cried  young 
George  Stephenson,  triumphantly.  It  seemed 
as  if  he  had  all  his  desire  in  this  proud  part- 
nership with  the  engine  in  the  care  of  the 
mines.  How  he  loved  that  engine!  His  spare 
hours  were  spent  in  petting  it,  coaxing  it,  and 
studying  all  its  tricks  and  manners.  Nothing 
delighted  him  more  than  taking  it  apart  and 
putting  it  together  again.  The  chief  engineer 
was  seldom  troubled  by  an  S.  0.  S.  call  from 
Master  George. 

The  young  engine-man  was  altogether 
happy.  Only  in  the  evenings  when  he  called 
in  a  fellow  worker  to  read  aloud  the  news  to 
him  by  the  light  of  the  engine,  did  he  look  wist- 
ful. For  the  pages  of  print  that  told  day  by 
day  the  tale  of  what  Napoleon  was  doing  to  the 
map  of  Europe  meant  nothing  to  Stephenson. 
He  must  wait  until  some  one  who  had  been  to 
school  should  come  along  to  help  him  out  of  his 
blindness. 

^*Am  I  too  old  to  learn  my  letters?"  Stephen- 
son wondered.     ^'Can  I  not  find  some  one  to 

248 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

teach  me  at  night  T'  Then  when  he  heard 
something  about  the  wonderful  new  engines 
made  by  James  Watt  he  knew  that  he  must 
learn.  If  there  were  no  way  at  hand  he  would 
make  one.  He  had  to  know  all  about  those 
engines. 

A  schoolmaster  was  found  who  gave  him 
lessons  three  evenings  a  week  for  threepence — 
learning,  like  labor,  was  cheap  in  those  days — 
and  at  nineteen  George  was  able  to  spell  out 
the  news  of  the  day  and  even  read  about  the 
success  of  the  Boulton  and  Watt  engines  in  the 
Cornish  coal-mines. 

** Don't  you  get  enough  of  engines,  working 
with  them  all  day,  that  you  want  to  play  at 
making  them  all  night  f  jeered  one  of  young 
Stephenson's  companions.  For  it  seemed  that 
when  George  was  not  busy  tinkering  at  his  pet 
monster  he  was  amusing  himself  making  dif- 
ferent sorts  of  engines  in  clay,  just  as  he  had 
done  as  a  little  boy. 

**  There  's  more  to  engines  than  one  would 
think,"  George  would  reply;  ^* always  some- 
thing new  to  study  out. ' ' 

By  day  and  by  night  George  ever  found  some- 
249 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

thing  new  to  learn.  From  a  fellow  worker  lie 
*^  picked  np^'  the  responsible  work  of  brake- 
man,  and  was  promoted  to  the  care  of  the  ma- 
chinery which  raised  the  huge  baskets  of  coal 
from  the  pit.  This  meant  regulating  the  speed 
of  the  engine  by  a  powerful  brake  at  the  mo- 
ment when  the  load  appeared  at  the  mouth  of 
the  shaft  and  reversing  it  at  the  right  moment 
to  carry  the  empty  baskets  down  to  be  filled. 

Young  George  Stephenson  was  now  generally 
known  as  an  expert  workman  and  a  man  of  un- 
common character  and  thrift.  He  found  time 
to  add  to  his  earnings  by  mending  and  making 
shoes  and  also  by  repairing  clocks.  Sometimes 
he  made  a  few  extra  shillings  of  an  evening  by 
shoveling  ballast  from  the  coal-ships.  And  al- 
ways while  he  was  earning,  his  native  mother- 
wit  kept  him  learning  something  new.  For  in- 
stance, while  wielding  the  spade  he  discovered 
the  way  of  standing  and  swinging  his  arms  that 
made  for  the  best  results.  And  years  after- 
ward, when  he  had  become  the  most  famous 
engineer  in  England,  he  would  sometimes  take 
a  spade  from  a  worker  in  his  own  mines,  and 
say,  ^^Look  you,  now, — see  how  much  better  it 

250 


GEOEaE  STEPHENSON 

goes  so!'*  He  showed  that  intelligence  means 
power  at  hard  labor  as  elsewhere,  and  that  he 
took  pride  in  the  work  of  his  hands  as  well  as 
in  the  great  achievements  of  his  inventive 
brain. 

Somehow  he  managed  to  turn  into  good  for- 
tune incidents  and  accidents  that  would  simply 
have  meant  bad  Inck  to  others,  as  when  his 
house  caught  fire  and  his  most  cherished  pos- 
session, an  eight-day  clock,  was  badly  damaged 
by  the  water  that  had  been  thrown  over  every- 
thing in  the  cottage.  Eepairs  would  mean  a 
heavy  tax  on  his  little  savings.  Why  not  see 
what  he  could  make  of  the  tiny  wheels  1  And 
then  the  master  of  engines  learned  the  fascina- 
tion and  strength  of  these  small  wheels,  as  his 
fingers  mastered  the  cunning  of  the  clock- 
maker.  Soon  he  was  the  most  popular  doctor 
of  clocks,  as  well  as  of  engines,  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. 

In  his  proper  line,  he  could  not  only  prescribe 
for  coughing,  wheezing  pumping-engines,  but 
in  situations  where  the  ordinary  pumps  would 
not  work  he  managed  to  set  up  machines  made 
for  the  particular  job,  as  when  he  was  called 

251 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

in  to  free  the  valuable  Ochre  Quarry  of  water. 
*'I  '11  set  up  an  engine  here  a  little  bigger  than 
a  kale-pot  that  should  clear  you  out  in  a  week, ' ' 
he  said,  and  was  as  good  as  his  word. 

Some  months  of  hard  work  went  by  with  every 
moment  turned  to  such  good  account  that,  while 
he  was  still  an  engine-wright  at  a  hundred 
pounds  a  year  he  was  able  to  care  for  his  old 
father — ^blind  and  helpless  now  through  an  ac- 
cident in  the  mine — and  also  to  send  his  young 
son,  Eobert,  to  a  good  school  in  Newcastle. 

The  father  watched  the  lad  as  he  cantered 
off  on  his  donkey — his  ^^ cuddy''  he  called  him — 
with  his  bag  of  books  and  his  bag  of  lunch 
swinging  merrily  in  time  with  the  brisk  canter 
of  the  little  beast.  ^^He  '11  not  have  to  work 
so  hard  and  make  so  many  useless  moves  as  I 
have,"  said  Stephenson,  who  was  daily  dis- 
covering some  short  cut  he  might  have  taken  in 
his  mechanical  problems  if  he  had  only  had  the 
knowledge,  which  books  might  have  given,  of 
what  others  had  accomplished.  And  often,  in 
the  evenings,  the  father  would  look  up  from 
the  crippled  clock  or  engine  on  which  he  worked 
to  fall  in  step  with  the  boy  at  his  book  tasks. 
.    252 


GEOEGE  STEPHENSON 

The  Stephenson  cottage  was  a  famous  place 
with  a  flourishing  garden  presided  over  by  a 
wonderful  *'fley-craw"  which  the  wind  turned 
into  a  waving  terror  to  all  birds  that  would 
seriously  injure  the  prize  vegetables,  but  where 
there  were  always  tame  blackbirds  or  throstles 
about,  ready  to  pay  for  their  supper  with  a 
song.  Within,  the  workroom  was  a  place  of 
wonders,  from  the  clever  fastening  of  the  door, 
that  opened  only  to  the  master's  touch,  to  the 
new  models  of  engines,  alarm-clocks  for  sleepy 
miners,  and  lamps  that  would  burn  underwater. 

Stephenson  had  already  made  some  success- 
ful engines  for  raising  coal  from  the  pit,  and  a 
self-acting  incline  whereby  the  full  wagons  of 
coal,  descending,  pulled  up  empty  cars  to  the 
point  of  loading,  when  the  problem  of  a  loco- 
motive seized  upon  his  thought.  There  was, 
of  course,  a  pressing  need  for  quicker  and  more 
economical  transportation  of  the  heavy  loads 
from  the  mines.  Flat  wagon  roads  of  cast-iron, 
and  then  tracks  of  wood  and  iron,  were  laid 
to  lessen  the  strain  on  the  horses.  As  a  child, 
George  Stephenson  had  seen  horses  drag 
wagons  of  coal,  from  the  colliery  where  his 

253 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

father  worked,  over  four  miles  of  wooden 
tracks,  to  be  loaded  on  to  barges  and  floated  off 
to  the  big  world  beyond  Newcastle, — to  London, 
perhaps. 

In  1804,  a  man  named  Trevethick,  had  made 
an  experiment  with  a  locomotive  on  one  of  these 
tramways,  but  the  heavy  engine  had  done  such 
damage  to  the  precious  roadway  that  he  could 
not  persuade  the  mine-owners  to  repair  it  with 
better  materials  for  a  further  trial.  For  people 
really  pinned  their  faith  to  the  improved  tracks ; 
an  iron  horse  just  fitted  to  run  over  them 
seemed  a  thing  of  myth  or  fairy  tale. 

Before  this,  in  1784,  William  Murdock  (then 
in  the  employ  of  James  Watt)  had  made  a  suc- 
cessful model  of  a  locomotive,  but  even  his 
chief,  whom  all  sane  men  were  agreed  in  re- 
garding as  the  first  authority  on  steam-engines, 
called  this  experimentation  ^*a  waste  of  time 
and  money  in  hunting  shadows."  He  found 
Murdock,  however,  hard  to  convince,  and  two 
years  later  (September,  1786)  Watt  was  so 
fearful  that  the  services  of  his  most  valuable 
engine-maker  would  be  lost  to  him,  through 
this  growing  interest  in  the  *^ shadow  hunt," 

254 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

that  we  find  him  writing  to  his  partner,  Matthew 
Boulton,  of  his  concern  becanse  their  faithful 
^'William''  was  ** busying  hiinself  with  the 
steam-carriage."  **I  have  still,"  he  added, 
^Hhe  same  opinion  concerning  it  that  I  had; 
but  to  prevent  as  mnch  as  possible  more  fmit- 
less  argument  about  it  I  have  one  of  some  size 
under  hand  and  am  resolved  to  try  if  God  will 
work  a  miracle  in  favor  of  these  carriages." 

So  it  was  that  even  though  Trevethick's 
engine  showed  great  promise,  its  brilliant  in- 
ventor became  discouraged  because  his  heavy 
monster  tore  up  the  iron  plates  in  the  roadway. 

^^We  know  that  a  good  track  is  worth  some- 
thing," said  the  mine-owners,  *^and  we  '11  not 
put  down  another  for  you  to  ruin  in  your  crazy 
experiments. ' ' 

This  was  in  1804.  And  Trevethick,  who  had 
inventive  genius  without  the  perserverance  to 
carry  his  ideas  to  success  despite  opposition 
and  difficulties,  gave  up  the  fight.  But  still 
the  need  for  something  that  could  handle  the 
coal,  which  was  ever  in  greater  demand  as  ma- 
chinery came  more  and  more  into  use,  drove 
some  men  to  try  *4f  God  would  work  a  miracle" 

255 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

through  steam,  and  give  an  engine  power  to 
move  itself  about  on  wheels. 

Simple  as  the  thing  seems  to-day  even  to 
children,  who  are  born  into  a  world  of  ^^horse- 
less carriages,"  at  the  time  that  Stephenson 
began  his  locomotive,  scientific  men  and  engi- 
neers everywhere  believed  that  if  a  heavy 
weight  should  be  attached  to  an  engine,  the 
smooth  wheels  on  the  smooth  tracks  would  sim- 
ply spin  around  in  one  spot.  So  firmly  was 
this  idea  rooted  in  men's  minds,  that  even  after 
George  Stephenson's  locomotive  was  running 
between  Liverpool  and  Manchester,  and  a 
model  of  it  placed  on  exhibition  before  the 
scientists  of  the  French  Academy,  one  of  the 
learned  members  said,  smiling:  ^^Yes,  this  is  a 
wonderfully  ingenious  contrivance,  no  doubt, 
but  unfortunately  the  machine  can  never  move. 
The  wheels  will  turn  round  and  round  in  the 
same  place."  But  Stephenson,  who  had  seen 
one  or  two  experiments  with  crude  locomotives 
which  did  move  despite  everything,  brought  to 
the  great  problem  just  what  was  needed, — ^per- 
severance and  sound  mechanical  experience. 
While  Trevethick  threw  his  locomotive  on  the 

256 


GEOEGE  OTEPHENSON 

junk-heap  to  follow  other  more  alluring  possi- 
bilities, the  plodding  engine-wright  buckled 
down  to  the  task  in  earnest,  and  brought  to 
practical  success  an  invention  which  was  to 
change  the  whole  course  of  the  world's  history. 

Those  first  locomotives  Stephenson  saw 
were  made  with  four  pushers  or  legs  which  the 
engine  worked  like  the  legs  of  a  horse  to  grip 
the  rails  and  make  the  wheels  carry  the  cars 
forward.  They  were  clumsy  monsters  with  an 
odd  collection  of  pumps,  cog-wheels,  and  plugs 
that  needed  the  most  constant  attention  to  keep 
them  going  according  to  plan. 

**How  do  you  get  on?"  an  engine-driver  was 
asked  one  day. 

* '  Get  on, ' '  he  exclaimed.  *  *  We  don 't  get  on ; 
we  only  get  off!"  For  it  frequently  happened 
that  horses  had  to  be  sent  to  drag  the  bulky 
engines  to  be  overhauled  and  to  carry  the  coal- 
wagons  in  the  old  slow-but-sure  fashion. 
Though,  it  must  be  understood,  there  was 
nothing  that  remotely  suggested  rapid  transit 
in  the  locomotive  as  Stephenson  saw  it  in  1813. 
At  best  it  could  drag  a  weight  of  seventy  tons 

257 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

on  a  level  road  at  tlie  rate  of  three  miles  an 
honr. 

**I  think  I  can  make  a  better  engine  than 
any  I  have  seen  yet,  to  go  upon  legs,"  said 
George  Stephenson  at  this  time.  He  saw  that 
all  were  practical  failures,  clumsy  and  expen- 
sive to  run.  They  ate  coal  at  a  terrible  rate, 
tore  up  roadways  in  the  most  ruthless  fashion, 
and  sometimes  the  angry  boiler  would  burst 
and  scatter  the  pieces  of  the  sad  experiment  in 
every  direction. 

*^ Still,"  said  George  Stephenson,  with  slow 
emphasis,  ^^I  think  I  can  make  an  engine  that 
will  go  and  will  pay."  He  said  this  not  idly 
to  himself  or  to  idle  bystanders,  but,  carefully 
weighing  his  words,  to  Lord  Eavensworth, 
principal  owner  of  the  Killingworth  Colliery. 
*^Well,  Stephenson,"  said  the  capitalist, 
*^we  Ve  had  chances  to  see  what  you  're  worth 
as  an  engineer,  both  above  and  below  ground 
here  at  the  mines.  I  know  that  you  know  what 
you  're  about,  and  that  you  do  not  give  up 
until  you  see  a  job  to  a  finish.  If  you  are  will- 
ing to  spend  your  time  and  strength  on  this 

258 


GEOEGE  STEPHENSON 

thing,  I  am  willing  to  spend  the  money  for  the 
trial." 

*^  There  's  more  in  it  that  anybody  dreams 
of,''  declared  Stephenson  earnestly,  ^'for 
there  's  no  limit  to  the  speed  of  snch  an  engine 
if  the  works  can  be  made  to  stand." 

Stephenson  had  the  difiicnities  of  a  pioneer 
in  a  wholly  new  field.  There  were  no  skilled 
mechanics  or  proper  tools  and  apparatus  at 
hand.  Everywhere  he  had  to  break  gronnd  and 
to  build  from  the  ground  up.  But  on  July  25, 
1814,  he  placed  on  the  Killingworth  railway 
an  engine  (which  in  general  followed  the  plan 
of  earlier  models)  that  drew  eight  loaded  car- 
riages of  thirty  tons  weight  at  about  four  miles 
an  hour,  and  kept  steadily  at  work  at  this  rate. 

Though  this  was  a  great  advance  over  any- 
thing so  far  accomplished,  it  served  chiefly  to 
urge  the  inventor  on  to  new  effort.  He  saw 
that  the  parts  were  so  huddled  together  that 
they  did  not  have  proper  play,  and  the  forward 
movement  was  so  violently  jerky  that  the  ma- 
chinery was  under  a  constant  strain. 

Now  the  patient  mechanic,  who  had  worked 

often  far  into  the  night  mending  and  making 

259 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

engines  and  studying  all  their  ways,  realized 
that  he  must  start  out  on  a  new  line.  Putting- 
aside  earlier  models,  he  faced  the  locomotive 
problem  from  the  beginning.  *' After  a  few 
months  of  experience  and  careful  observation, ' ' 
said  Eobert  Stephenson,  *^my  father  directed 
his  attention  to  an  entire  change  in  the  con- 
struction and  mechanical  arrangements,  and  in 
the  following  year  took  out  a  patent,  dated 
February  28th,  1815,  for  an  engine  which  com- 
bined to  a  remarkable  degree  the  essential 
requisites  of  an  economical  locomotive, — that 
is  to  say,  few  parts,  simplicity  in  their  action, 
and  great  simplicity  in  the  mode  by  which 
power  was  communicated  to  the  wheels  sup- 
porting the  engines.  .  .  .  Engines  made  by  my 
father  in  1818  after  this  model  are  still  used 
to  this  day  (1856)  at  KTillingworth,  carrying 
heavy  coal-cars  at  about  five  or  six  miles  an 
hour  as  economically  as  any  since  made.'' 

At  first  the  locomotive  was  regarded  only  as  a 
sort  of  a  super-horse  especially  planned  to  haul 
coal.  Then,  in  1825,  when  merchants  of  Liver- 
pool and  Manchester  looked  about  for  an  im- 
proved way  of  shipping  their  goods,  some  of 

260 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

their  men  visited  Killingworth,  saw  Stephen- 
son ^s  engine,  and  reported  upon  it  so  enthu- 
siastically that  a  company  was  formed  to  lay 
a  railway  between  those  two  great  centers  of 
trade. 

Now  a  storm  of  opposition  was  raised  by 
those  interested  in  the  canals.  Land-owners 
would  not  allow  surveys  to  be  made.  News- 
papers were  hired  and  pamphlets  were  circu- 
lated to  stir  up  prejudice  against  the  new  ven- 
ture. They  said  that  the  snorting  locomotive, 
belching  fire  and  smoke,  would  poison  the  air, 
kill  birds,  and  so  disturb  the  peaceful  cattle  and 
hens  that  they  could  not  longer  produce  milk 
and  eggs.  Horses  would  be  driven  mad  and  the 
sparks  sent  broadcast  would  set  fire  to  cottages, 
hayricks  and  woodland.  ^^I  was  threatened  to 
be  ducked  in  the  pond  if  I  proceeded,"  said 
Stephenson,  *^and  of  course  a  great  deal  of  the 
survey  had  to  be  taken  by  stealth  when  the  peo- 
ple were  at  dinner.  In  a  word,  the  country  was 
up  in  arms  against  us.'' 

While  a  few  daring  newspapers  boldly  ven- 
tured the  belief  that  through  the  use  of  steam- 
power  on  railroads  cheaper  and  more  rapid 

261 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

conveyance  of  both  people  and  freight  might 
he  expected  in  the  fntnre,  the  promoters  of  the 
Liverpool  and  Manchester  road  warned  those 
who  spoke  in  favor  of  its  hill  in  Parliament  not 
even  to  hint  at  the  possibility  of  passenger- 


An  Early  Eailway  Coach 


trains.  '^That  wonld  at  once  raise  a  host  of 
enemies  in  the  proprietors  of  coaches,  post- 
chaises,  and  innkeepers,  whose  interests  will 
be  attacked/'  said  Sir  John  Barrow,  who  was 
consulted  as  to  the  proper  method  of  present- 
ing the  case.     ^*  Leave  passengers  and  speed 

262 


GEOEGE  STEPHENSON 

entirely  out  of  the  Act ;  if  speed  has  to  be  dis- 
cussed, keep  it  as  low  as  possible,  say  five  miles 
an  hour.'' 

That  question  of  speed  was  a  terrible  bug- 
bear. 

^^We  can  easily  make  twenty  miles  an  hour," 
Stephenson  had  said. 

*^Yfhy,  that  is  more  than  twice  as  fast  as 
the  fastest  mail  coach,"  one  of  the  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  company  exclaimed.  ^'You 
must  not  talk  about  such  an  unreasonable  speed 
or  you  will  spoil  everything.  Everybody  will 
think  you  a  maniac  fit  only  for  Bedlam." 

Civil  engineers  generally  called  the  scheme 
of  a  locomotive  railway  absurd.  ^^I  remember 
the  time,"  said  George  Stephenson,  *^when  I 
had  so  few  supporters  that  I  hunted  England 
over  for  an  engineer  to  support  my  evidence 
before  Parliament,  and  could  find  only  one  man, 
James  Walker,  but  was  afraid  to  call  that  gen- 
tleman, because  he  knew  nothing  about  rail- 
ways. ' ' 

The  **  Quarterly  Eeview"  printed  an  article 
in  favor  of  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester 
scheme  because  *^an  added  means  of  carrying 

263 


COISTQUESTS  OF  i:N^VE]SrTIOI^ 

freight  was  an  absolute  necessity,"  but  at  the 
same  time  declared  that,  of  course,  tbe  matter 
mentioned  by  some  extravagant  persons  of 
passenger-carriages  going  at  twice  the  speed 
of  stage-coaches  was  too  absurd  to  be  taken 
seriously.  *^We  should  as  soon  expect  the  peo- 
ple to  suffer  themselves  to  be  fired  off  upon  one 
of  Congreve's  rockets  as  to  trust  themselves 
to  the  mercy  of  a  machine  going  at  such  a  rate. 
We  trust  that  Parliament  in  all  railways  that 
it  may  sanction  will  limit  the  speed  to  eight  or 
nine  miles  an  hour.'' 

When  George  Stephenson  was  called  before 
the  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  he  was 
put  through  a  grilling  examination. 

**0f  course,  when  a  body  is  moving  upon  a 
road,  the  greater  the  velocity  the  greater  the 
momentum;  is  it  not  so?"  asked  one  of  the 
scientific  ^* experts." 

'^Certainly,"  replied  Stephenson. 

*^What  would  be  the  momentum  of  forty  tons 
moving  at  the  rate  of  twelve  miles  an  hour?" 

^  *  It  would  be  very  great. ' ' 

*'Have  you  seen  a  railroad  that  would  stand 
that!" 

264 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 


a- 


Where  r'  demanded  the  expert  sternly. 

'^Any  railroad  that  would  bear  going  four 
miles  an  hour  would  bear  the  weight  at  twelve 
mileSy"  replied  Stephenson.  '^Let  me  explain. 
I  dare  say  every  person  here  has  skated  over 
ice  or  seen  people  skating,  and  they  know  the 
ice  will  bear  them  better  when  they  go  rapidly 
than  it  would  if  they  went  slower;  when  they 
go  quick  the  weight  in  a  measure  ceases." 

So  the  self-taught  mechanic  struggled  hero- 
ically to  explain  what  all  the  distinguished  en- 
gineers and  public  opinion  generally  held  to  be 
impossible. 

*'Is  it  because  of  that  skating  idea  that  you 
say  the  railroad  is  perfect?"  laughed  the  ex- 
pert. 

^^It  is;  and  I  mean  to  make  it  perfect,"  re- 
plied George  Stephenson. 

But  people  generally  declared  with  the  ex- 
aminer that  the  inventor  and  his  scheme  rested 
alike  ^'on  very  thin  ice;"  and  if  the  matter  of 
speed  had  been  pressed  at  that  time  the  bill 
would  undoubtedly  have  lost  out. 

At  last,  however,  permission  was  gained  to 
265 


COi^QUESTS  OF  mVEI^TIOIsr 

lay  the  road,  and  the  method  of  transportation 
was  left  to  be  settled  at  a  later  date.  When 
the  road  was  ready  the  matter  was  still  in 
donbt.  George  Stephenson  stood  alone  in  ad- 
vocating traveling  engines.  The  most  cele- 
brated engineers  held  the  locomotive  idea  in 
snch  contempt  that  they  wonld  not  even  examine 
what  the  Killingworth  engines  were  accom- 
plishing. Shonld  an  nntaught  workman,  who 
had  picked  up  everything  he  knew  of  mechanics 
and  engineering  in  the  Newcastle  coal-pits  put 
them  all  in  the  wrong  and  advise  Parliament 
as  to  a  new  system  of  transportation  for  the 
country! 

George  Stephenson  earnestly  pressed  the 
claims  of  the  traveling  engine,  however,  against 
a  system  of  stationary  engines,  and  he  so  far 
prevailed  that  the  directors  of  the  road  agreed 
to  offer  a  prize  of  five  hundred  dollars  for  the 
best  locomotive  that  should  on  a  given  day  be 
entered  on  the  Liverpool  and  Manchester  road, 
and  fulfil  certain  necessary  conditions  in  the 
most  satisfactory  manner. 

Here  was  an  incentive  to  lead  the  mechanical 
geniuses  of  the  country  to  a  new  consideration 

266 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

of  the  possibilities  of  the  locomotive,  and  when 
the  day  for  the  contest  arrived  four  champions 
contended  for  the  prize.  Of  these,  the 
^'Rocket,''  entered  by  George  and  Robert 
Stephenson,  seemed  to  judges  and  public  alike 
to  have  little  in  its  general  appearance  to  com- 
mend it.  The  ^^ Novelty''  and  the  ^'Sans 
Pareil"  were  both  picked  out  as  winners. 

On  October  6,  1829,  several  thousands  of 
spectators,  including  many  of  the  leading  en- 
gineers and  mechanics  of  the  day,  were  gath- 
ered at  Rainhill  to  witness  the  race.  When  the 
great  moment  came  the  ^^ Rocket"  was  the  only 
one  ready  for  the  start,  so  the  judges  called  it 
out  for  an  experimental  trip.  It  ran  twelve 
miles  in  about  fifty-three  minutes;  it  not  only 
measured  up  to  requirements  but  went  beyond 
them.  Not  until  the  next  day  were  the  favor- 
ites ^'Novelty"  and  ^^Sans  Pareil"  ready.  But 
even  now,  alas!  there  was  trouble.  The  neat- 
looking,  compact  ^'Novelty"  depended  upon  a 
bellows  to  force  air  through  the  fire,  and  at  the 
very  moment  of  its  appearance  this  bellows 
gave  way.  At  the  critical  moment,  too,  some- 
thing went  amiss  with  the  boiler  of  the  *'Sans 

267 


coisTQUESTS  OF  mvEisrTio:^^ 

Pareil.''  To  lessen  the  disappointment  of  the 
assembled  crowd  Stephenson  again  brought 
forward  the  ^  ^  Eocket,  ^ '  attached  to  it  a  car  con- 
taining thirty  persons,  who,  much  to  their  won- 
der and  delight,  were  carried  smoothly  over 
the  two  miles  of  trial  road  at  the  rate  of  from 
twenty-fonr  to  thirty  miles  an  hour.  The  face 
of  the  world  was  changed.  A  miracle  had  come 
to  pass;  man  was  to  conquer  time  and  space 
at  once,  by  this  new  means  of  travel.  Excited, 
cheering  people  were  at  once  ready  to  crown 
the  master  of  the  *^ Eocket,'^  but  the  judges 
called  for  one  more  trial  on  the  following  morn- 
ing at  eight  o  'clock. 

Once  more  the  doughty  ^^ Eocket'' — the  dark 
horse  that  had  suddenly  turned  favorite — ^was 
the  only  engine  ready  for  the  start.  It  first 
proved  what  it  could  do,  dragging  thirteen 
tons'  weight  in  wagons.  It  made  ten  trips 
backward  and  forward  over  the  two  miles  of 
trial  track,  some  forty  miles  in  all,  including 
stoppages,  in  an  hour  and  forty-eight  minutes. 
Another  series  of  ten  trips  were  made  in  two 
hours  and  ten  minutes.  All  conditions  of  safety 
and  practical  economy  had  been  met,  and  the 

268 


GEOROE  STEPHENSON 

thing  ran !  It  ran  at  a  rate  that  far  outstripped 
conditions,  and  the  limits  of  what  had  been 
deemed  possible. 


Stephenson  ^s  *'Eocket  " 

^^Well/'  cried  the  elated  directors  of  the 
road,  *^  George  Stephenson  has  surely  delivered 
himself!" 

It  was  characteristic  of  the  modest  inventor 
269 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

that  at  the  moment  of  his  triumph,  with  cheer- 
ing crowds  calling  his  name,  and  men  of  power 
and  place  eagerly  waiting  to  take  his  hand,  he 
should  only  say,  ^^Well,  the  locomotive  is  safe 
now;  the  day  of  better  travel  has  come/' 

With  the  opening  of  the  Liverpool  and  Man- 
chester Eailway  in  1830  a  new  day  had  dawned 
in  the  history  of  man.  It  seemed  as  if  all  the 
energy  of  the  human  race  were  being  expended 
in  laying  roads.  By  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  a  network  of  railways  had 
spread  over  all  Europe.  Distances  were  all  at 
once  reduced  to  one  tenth  of  what  they  had 
been.  Men  were  brought  into  closer  relation 
with  each  other.  A  new  world  order  was  built 
up  through  this  easy  and  certain  commerce  of 
city  with  country,  of  nation  with  nation. 

''Let  the  country  but  make  the  railways,  and 
the  railways  will  make  the  country,''  Stephen- 
son had  said.  In  all  of  the  road-making  and 
nation-building  that  v/ent  forward  everywhere 
the  self-taught  engine-wright  and  his  son  were 
chief  or  consulting  engineers.  The  amount  of 
work  handled  in  those  days  would  have  been 
impossible  to  one  less  hardy,  one  whose  nerves 

270 


GEOEaE  OTEPHENSON 

had  not  been  tempered  through  years  of  strain 
to  withstand  discomfort  and  hardship.  Many 
times  the  only  sleep  George  Stephenson  got  was 
snatched  in  his  traveling  chaise ;  then  ' '  at  break 
of  day  he  would  be  at  work,  surveying  until 
dark,  and  this  for  weeks  in  succession."  The 
^^Eocket,''  too,  he  looked  upon  merely  as  a 
successful  experiment,  and  constantly  studied 
to  make  each  new  locomotive  an  improvement 
upon  earlier  models. 

But  hard  work  and  heavy  responsibility  did 
not  steel  the  heart  or  spoil  the  disposition  of 
the  great  engineer,  who  was  always  a  simple, 
wholesome,  sunny-tempered  man.  At  a  time 
when  he  was  dictating  to  his  secretary  some 
thirty  or  forty  letters  a  day — letters  dealing 
with  knotty  problems  of  road-laying,  tunnel- 
ing, and  bridge-making,  perhaps — ^he  found 
time  to  write  his  son  about  a  tragedy  he  had 
discovered  in  an  unused  room  of  his  house. 
A  window  which  had  been  so  long  left  open  that 
a  pair  of  robins  had  made  their  nest  and 
brought  up  a  family  under  his  roof,  had  one 
day  been  closed  by  a  servant.  Three  days  later 
Stephenson,    whose    attention   was    distracted 

271 


COI^QUESTS  OF  mVEI^TION 

from  his  work  by  the  distress  of  a  bird  flutter- 
ing against  one  of  his  windows,  entered  the 
room  and  came  npon  a  nest  where  the  young 
birds  and  the  mother  lay  dead.  Quickly  open- 
ing the  window,  he  took  up  the  mate,  that 
darted  in  only  to  fall  exhausted  at  his  feet. 
Warming  it  and  feeding  it  tenderly,  he  coaxed 
it  back  to  life  for  a  while.  ^^But  it  could  not 
get  over  the  three  days  shut  away  from  the 
prisoners  on  the  other  side  of  the  glass,"  he 
added;  ^^all  its  strength  had  gone  into  that 
desperate  fluttering  against  our  window." 

In  his  last  years,  when  all  that  wealth  and 
honor  could  bestow  were  his,  Stephenson  found 
his  chief  delight  in  his  garden  among  his  vege- 
tables, fruit-trees,  and  friendly  birds.  *^Here 
my  hobbies  grow  and  make  the  most  of  my  sun- 
shine for  me,"  he  would  say.  The  wonder  of 
the  sunshine  was  to  him  the  greatest  of  earth's 
miracles.  Once,  as  he  stood  with  a  friend 
watching  one  of  his  big  locomotives  charging 
across  the  landscape  under  its  lordly  plume  of 
smoke,  he  suddenly  exclaimed: 

**Sir,  I  have  a  poser  for  you.  What  is  the 
power  that  is  driving  that  train!" 

272 


o 

o 


GEORGE  STEPHENSON 

^^Well/'  said  the  other,  ''I  suppose  one  of 
your  big  engines.'' 

^^But  what  drives  the  engine  T' 

^*A  canny  Newcastle  engineer,  I  might  haz- 
ard.'' 

'*  Suppose  I  should  say  the  power  that  drives 
the  engine  is  just  the  light  of  the  sun?"  queried 
Stephenson. 

^^How  can  that  be  I" 

^'It  is  nothing  else,"  said  the  engineer.  *'It 
is  light  bottled  up  in  the  earth  for  tens  of 
thousands  of  years,  light  absorbed  by  plants 
and  vegetables,  now  made  to  work  in  that  loco- 
motive tor  great  human  purposes." 

The  miracle  he  had  seen  wrought  in  the  en- 
lightenment of  men's  minds  was  also  a  favorite 
topic. 

^^In  less  than  ten  years  the  same  people  who 
had  cried  out  against  the  locomotive  as  a 
^poison-breathing,  death-dealing  monster'  were 
begging  to  have  the  new  railways  pass  their 
farms  and  country  estates,"  he  said.  *^The 
men  who  fought  us  most  bitterly  in  Parliament 
now  advertise  their  lands  as  ^near  a  railway 
station.'    Only  the  other  day,  when  a  leading 

273 


CO:tTQUESTS  OF  mYE:N'TIO]^ 

citizen  addressed  a  meeting  on  the  subject  of 
a  line  to  Ms  town,  he  said:  ^I  have  laid  down 
for  myself  a  limit  to  my  endorsement  to  rail- 
ways— and  the  limit  is  I  do  not  want  them  to 
come  any  nearer  than  to  run  through  my  bed- 
room with  the  bedposts  for  a  station!^  I  also 
heard  another  gentleman  say — it  was  the 
Marquis  of  Bristol — *If  necessary,  the  railroad 
can  make  a  tunnel  beneath  my  own  drawing- 
room  windows  rather  than  be  defeated  in  this 
project!'  So  you  see,"  Stephenson  added  with 
his  whole-hearted  smile,  ^^you  can't  keep  out  the 
truth — or  the  sunlight.  The  thing  we  are  too 
slow  to  understand  to-day  will  come  home  to  us 
to-morrow.'^ 


274 


THE  INVENTOR  OF  THE  AIR-BRAKE 

George  Westinghouse  (1846-1914) 

THE  boy  George  Westinghouse  seemed  to 
give  small  promise  of  the  man.  He  was  a 
laggard  in  school  and  a  laggard  in  the  sports 
that  are  the  delight  of  most  boys.  He  had  a 
curious  love  of  lingering  aimlessly  about  his 
father's  shop;  and  sometimes  he  seemed  able 
to  amuse  himself  unaccountably  by  playing  with 
a  few  bits  of  wood  for  hours  at  a.  time. 

His  mother  gave  him  the  name  of  his  father, 
saying  hopefully  that  perhaps  he  would  prove 
a  real  junior  in  native  power  and  gifts.  George 
Westinghouse  senior  was  a  man  of  weight  in 
the  community,  the  country  of  fertile  farms 
and  wide-awake  farmers  in  Schoharie  County, 
New  York.  Combining  mechanical  ability  with 
shrewd  business  sense,  he  made  various  im- 
provements on  threshing-machines  and  other 

275 


CONQUESTS  OF  i:NrVENTION^ 

agricultural  implements  and  manufactured  them 
in  Ms  own  shops. 

Young  George  Westinghouse  seemed  entirely 
without  his  father's  practical  sense.  Never 
was  there  a  colt  who  objected  more  to  bit  and 
bridle. 

^*My  first  vivid  recollection  is  of  the  way  I 
hated  all  restraint,''  said  Westinghouse  once, 
smiling  with  reminiscent  relish.  ^ '  I  had  a  fixed 
notion  that  what  I  wanted  I  must  have.  Some- 
how, that  idea  has  not  entirely  deserted  me 
throughout  my  life.  I  have  always  known  what 
I  wanted  and  how  to  get  it.  As  a  child,  I  got 
it  by  tantrums ;  in  mature  years,  by  hard  work. ' ' 

' '  Unless  you  can  learn  to  run  in  harness  you 
will  never  amount  to  anything,  my  son,"  his 
father  would  say.  ^^Now  if  you  want  to  be  of 
use  in  the  shop,  watch  the  men  who  know  the 
ways  of  tools." 

But  George  soon  tired  of  the  humdrum  story 
of  saw  and  plane.  At  his  own  bench  his  ap- 
pointed tasks  were  left  unfinished  while  he 
tried  to  construct  a  little  engine  of  his  own 
contriving,    or    perhaps    a    water-wheel    that 

276 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE 

should  engage  the  hurrying  stream  in  a  fashion 
he  happened  to  fancy  at  the  moment. 

*^ Trumpery — trumpery  and  nonsense!''  said 
Mr.  Westinghouse  one  day,  and  seizing  George's 
latest  pet  invention  he  threw  it  on  the  scrap- 
heap.  The  boy's  eyes  blazed  and  he  set  his 
teeth  hard  to  keep  back  the  angry  words. 

*^ Never  mind,  lad,"  said  the  foreman,  sym- 
pathetically, after  Mr.  Westinghouse  had 
passed  beyond  hearing.  '^  There  's  a  bit  of  a 
room  up  in  the  loft  where  the  boss  never  goes. 
There  you  can  have  your  things  and  play  with 
them  as  you  like,  with  no  one  to  mind  or  med- 
dle. ' '  So  George  had  his  den  where  he  went  to 
work  out  his  inventions.  The  time  came  when 
he  designed  and  made  the  complete  model  of  a 
rotary  engine  in  this  secret  nook  among  the 
rafters. 

The  way  of  the  inventor  is  hard,  even  when 
he  happens  to  be  born  the  son  of  an  inventor. 
For  to  be  original  means  to  be  different  and 
in  that  difference  lies  the  possibility  of  much 
doubt  and  misunderstanding.  George  West- 
inghouse was  ^^ different"  in  that  he  seemed  to 
take  small  interest  in  the  proper  concerns  of 

277 


COE^QUESTS  OF  i:tsrVEE^TIO:N' 

his  father's  shops.  A  new  threshing-machine 
had  no  power  to  kindle  his  enthusiasm.  He 
also  was  a  difficult  pupil  in  school.  It  baffled 
his  instructors  to  understand  why  a  youth  who 
was  so  ready  in  mathematics  and  so  keen  in 
reasoning  along  certain  lines  should  be  so  heavy 
and  inexpressive  when  it  came  to  most  of  the 
lore  of  books. 

One  teacher  alone  realized  that  there  was 
real  power  in  the  tongue-tied  lad.  ^'He  is  the 
kind  whose  thought  must  take  shape  in  action, 
not  in  words, ' '  she  said,  with  rare  understand- 
ing. 

*^We  all  owe  more  to  certain  of  our  teachers 
than  we  know,"  Mr.  Westinghouse  once  said. 
*^I  am  glad  that  I  realized  at  the  time  how  much 
a  certain  capable  schoolmarm  who  was  also  a 
lovely  and  lovable  woman  meant  in  my  life  at  a 
time  when  I  needed  the  right  sort  of  encourage- 
ment. ' ' 

Young  Westinghouse  was  indeed  the  sort 
whose  thought  took  shape  in  work,  not  in  words. 
There  we  have  the  keynote  to  his  character  and 
his  success;  and  his  thought  was  of  the  kind 
that  rebelled  against  fixed  grooves,  that  thirsted 

278 


GEOEGE  WESTINGHOUSE 

to  go  along  paths  of  its  own  finding.  His  early 
faults  that  made  his  staid  father  shake  his  head 
were  the  sort  that  showed  power  of  an  uncom- 
mon sort. 

It  was  necessary,  however,  for  him  to  know 
discipline, — to  tame  his  spirit  by  learning  what 
ends  were  worth  while  and  to  go  after  them 
by  work,  not  by  ^  ^  tantrums. ' '  His  first  real 
lessons  were  those  he  worked  out  alone  in  his 
loft  workshop  when  he  found  ihat  a  fellow 
never  got  anywhere  with  his  best  notions  un- 
less he  stuck  to  one  thing  until  he  conquered 
its  difficulties  and  brought  it  to  some  conclu- 
sion. So  he  grew  out  of  the  fitful,  impractical 
experimenter  who  made  many  more  or  less 
aimless  beginnings,  into  the  resolute  workman 
and  inventor  who  could  hang  on  to  a  problem 
with  a  grip  that  never  relaxed  until  he  arrived 
at  a  satisfactory  solution. 

More  valuable  lessons  in  self-mastery  were 
learned  through  his  experience  in  the  Civil  War, 
first  as  scout  in  a  cavalry  regiment,  later  as 
acting  third  assistant  engineer  in  the  navy,  a 
position  which  he  earned  by  his  excellent  mili- 
tary record  and  his  mechanical  skill.    While  on 

279 


CO:^QUESTS  OF  IISTVEI^TION 

board  the  Stars  and  Stripes  he  put  in  his  odd 
hours  at  a  lathe,  turning  out  by  its  means  a 
model  of  a  sawbuck  engine.  For  change  of 
circumstances  could  not  change  his  native  bent. 
His  interest  in  making  machines  was  a  part  of 
himself  and  not  to  be  left  behind  with  his  fa- 
miliar tools  in  his  den  at  home. 

Later,  when  the  war  was  over,  and  George, 
obedient  to  his  father's  wishes,  entered  the 
scientific  department  of  Union  College,  it  was 
seen  that  the  pressure  of  prescribed  studies 
could  not  stamp  out  his  original  work.  Even 
during  the  hours  when  he  was  supposed  to  be 
devoting  himself  to  the  irregularities  of  French 
verbs  and  German  idioms  he  was  making 
sketches  on  his  cuffs  of  locomotives  or  engines 
of  one  sort  or  another.  The  president  of  his 
college  undertook  to  bring  this  unsatisfactory 
student  into  line. 

**How  do  you  like  college,  Westinghouse  T ' 
he  began,  with  tactful  cheerfulness. 

''I  dare  say  I  should  like  it  very  well,''  re- 
plied George  frankly,  after  a  moment's  hesita- 
tion, ^4f  I  had  time  to  give  my  mind  to  my 
studies." 

280 


GEORGE  WES^riNGHOUSE 

And  then  the  astonished  Dr.  Hickok  learned 
that  here  was  not  a  case  of  an  idle  student, 
heedlessly  wasting  the  golden  opxjortunities  of 
yonth.  ^^He  has  a  mind  of  his  own  and  the 
mind  to  use  it/'  he  advised  George's  father. 
^*It  will  be  useless  to  try  to  keep  him  in  college 
at  work  in  which  he  has  no  heart." 

So  George  was  allowed  a  bench  in  his  father's 
shop  and  he  soon  proved  that  he  had  learned 
to  run  in  harness  now,  during  working  hours 
at  least.  Even  the  stern  and  exacting  father 
admitted  that  he  was  a  competent  workman, 
who  could  turn  out  a  neat  job  at  the  point 
needed.  But  still  the  real  interest  of  the  days 
was  found  in  the  ^'den,"  where  some  ideas  that 
had  come  to  him  during  his  experience  in  the 
navy  were  at  this  time  taking  shape  in  the 
rotary  engine  already  referred  to. 

It  was  always  a  mechanical  problem,  a  prac- 
tical need,  that  engaged  the  attention  of  this 
young  man  whose  thought  *^took  shape  in 
work."  Once  when  watching  a  wrecking-crew 
work  painfully  to  get  some  derailed  cars  back 
on  the  track,  the  idea  came  to  him  for  a  car- 

281 


COISTQUESTS  OF  i:N'yE:N^TIO]Sr 

replacer  which  he  reduced  to  definite  form  in  a 
drawing  before  he  went  to  sleep  that  night. 

George  Westinghonse  now  had  an  opportu- 
nity to  demonstrate  his  business  ability,  the 
power  to  size  up  a  situation  and  *^go  after'' 
an  object  until  it  is  attained.  With  little  en- 
couragement from  his  father,  he  succeeded  in 
getting  a  small  amount  of  capital  together  from 
several  investors  in  the  city,  formed  a  com- 
pany, and  set  about  interviewing  various  rail- 
road men  in  order  to  introduce  his  car-replaccr. 
Coming  now  in  direct  contact  with  railroad 
problems,  he  found  himself  one  day  face  to  face 
with  another  idea.  He  saw  that  of  all  parts  of 
a  track  the  frogs  had  to  be  most  frequently 
replaced.  This  meant  continual  tearing  up  and 
patching  that  caused  not  only  expense  but  delay 
to  traffic.  Westinghouse,  then,  made  a  cast- 
steel  reviersible  frog  that  was  twenty  times 
more  durable  than  the  cast-iron  parts  in  use 
up  to  that  time.  But  of  course  one  couldn't 
build  up  a  fortune  on  frogs  whose  virtue  was 
their  long  life.  When  once  roads  were  equipped, 
a  new  supply  was  not  needed  for  a  long  time. 
It  was  well,  therefore,  that  young  Westinghouse 

282 


GEOEGE  WESTINGHOUSE 

did  not  rest  his  hopes  here  but  was  already 
seeking  new  worlds  to  conquer. 

Once  more  a  need  was  presented  dramatically 
through  a  railroad  accident.  One  day,  as  West- 
inghouse  stepped  from  his  train  to  see  why  it 
had  come  to  a  sudden  stop  with  no  station  in 


Westinghouse  '^Frog  " 

sight,  he  saw  the  ground  strewn  with  broken 
cars  and  their  hapless  cargo. 

*^Must  have  been  gross  carelessness, — a  col- 
lision on  a  straight,  smooth  stretch  of  road  like 
this,"  he  remarked. 

*^No,''  he  was  told,  *'the  engineers  saw  each 
other  and  both  tried  to  stop  but  couldn't." 

283 


coi^QUESTS  OF  ustyee^tio:^ 

'*Why  not?    Brakes  out  of  order!" 

^*No,  but  all  the  brakes  and  brakemen  in  the 
world  can't  bring  a  train  to  a  standstill  all  at 
once.  It  takes  time  to  signal  to  the  brakemen 
and  time  again  for  them  to  clamp  on  the 
brakes.  This  swift  iron  age  of  ours  must  pay 
toll  for  its  speed.'' 

This  was  the  kind  of  challenge  that  fired 
George  Westinghouse.  A  need  without  a  rem- 
edy? Impossible!  It  was  clear  that  the  brakes 
which  moved  with  such  slowness  on  a  fast  train 
needed  reforming.  Could  they  not  all  move 
together  by  means  of  a  chain  that  extended 
the  length  of  the  train?  Might  not  some  power, 
controlled  by  the  engineer,  pull  the  chain  at 
need  and  clamp  the  brakes  on  all  the  wheels 
by  one  action? 

What  power  could  handle  and  control  the 
mighty  chain  that  should  run  the  length  of  a 
train  of  many  cars?  Steam?  Could  steam  from 
the  engine  pass  to  the  cylinders  on  the  different 
cars  that  should  take  care  of  the  slack  of  chain 
made  by  the  operation  of  the  brakes?  Even  in 
summer  the  steam  would  be  condensed  long  be- 

284 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE 

fore  it  readied  the  last  cars;  in  cold  weather 
the  condensed  steam  would  freeze. 

Then  it  happened  that  the  man  and  the  idea 
of  the  hour  were  brought  together  as  if  by 
chance.  George  Westinghouse  picked  up  a 
stray  copy  of  a  new  magazine,  which  opened 
to  an  article  that  caught  his  attention,  about  a 
remarkable  engineering  feat, — the  digging  of 
the  Mont  Cenis  tunnel  eight  miles  through  the 
Alps  from  France  to  Italy  by  means  of  rock 
drills  operated  by  compressed  air.  George 
Westinghouse  gave  an  exclamation  of  delight. 
He  had  found  the  key  to  his  door  of  opportu- 
nity. Compressed  air  should  be  the  power  to 
work  at  the  bidding  of  the  engineer  in  setting 
the  brakes.  If  the  power  of  air  could  be  sent 
through  pipes  thousands  of  feet  to  dig  a  pas- 
sage for  man  through  the  heart  of  a  mountain 
range,  it  could  pass  unchanged  from  engine  to 
caboose  along  any  train  of  cars.  Then  the  man 
whose  thoughts  took  shape  in  action  began  at 
once  to  turn  his  idea  into  reality.  The  very 
day  that  he  read  about  the  tunneling  of  the 
Alps  by  means  of  compressed  air  he  made  the 
first  drawings  of  his  famous  air-brake. 

285 


CO]^QUESTS  OF  mVE^TIOiN^ 

A  new  idea  must  meet  the  right  sort  of  man 
if  it  is  to  gain  a  foothold  in  the  world.  The 
man  who  works  for  the  things  of  which  people 
have  never  even  dreamed  must  have  the  stern 
staying  qualities  of  the  pioneer.  Even  after 
Westinghouse  had  translated  his  idea  into  com- 
plete working  drawings  and  models  of  the 
mechanism  planned,  it  was  long  before  he  could 
make  the  railroad  men  entertain  the  notion  up 
to  the  point  of  making  an  actual  demonstration 
possible.  The  heads  of  one  leading  railway 
system  after  another  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  all 
pleadings  for  a  practical  test.  And  when  at 
last  a  trial  was  granted  and  won,  when  West- 
inghouse was  able  to  wire  home  the  news  of 
the  dramatic  trial  trip  which  proved  beyond 
question  the  value  of  the  invention,  his  own 
father  had  so  little  faith  in  its  practical  success 
that  he  declined  to  invest  any  money  in  the 
venture.  ^ 

Fate,  however,  was  more  kindly.  The  time 
had  come  for  the  air-brake  and  a  very  pretty 
drama  was  staged  by  fortune  for  the  man  of 
the  hour.  There  was  the  train  equipped  for  the 
trial  trip  with  officials  of  the  Panhandle  Eail- 

286 


GEOEGE  WESTINGHOUSE 

road  and  a  few  invited  guests  from  other  com- 
panies in  the  rear  car.  There  was  Westinghouse, 
tense  but  confident,  looking  over  the  apparatus 
in  the  cab.  He  looked  over  the  engineer,  too, 
and  saw  a  clear-eyed,  capable  young  man. 
*^Well,"  he  said,  by  way  of  parting  caution, 
*'all  I  ask  is  that  you  give  this  a  fair  show. 


The  Air-Brake 

Good  luck  to  you ! ' '  This  with  a  firm,  hearten- 
ing hand-shake  that  left  in  the  engineer's  grasp, 
together  with  the  will  to  do  his  utmost  for 
this  new  brake  entrusted  to  him,  the  surprising 
bonus  of  a  fifty-dollar  note.  And  his  smile  of 
reassurance  to  the  astonished  master  of  the 
engine  gave  no  suspicion  of  the  truth  that  the 
inventor  had  given  his  last  dollar. 

287 


CONQUESTS  OF  i:N^yE:^Tioisr 

With  the  stage  all  set  for  the  great  act,  for- 
tune now  pulled  the  strings.  A  deaf  drayman, 
despite  all  warnings,  started  to  drive  his  wagon 
over  the  track,  when  his  frightened  horse  made 
the  matter  more  desperate  for  the  frenzied 
driver  by  throwing  him  across  the  rails  in  front 
of  the  rapidly  approaching  locomotive.  The 
engineer  saw  the  danger  ahead.  Now  for  the 
new  brake.  A  powerful  twist  at  the  valve,  and 
the  compressed  air  rushed  through  the  pipes 
to  the  cylinders  under  the  cars,  and  the  brakes 
were  clapped  to  their  wheels  with  a  mighty  jerk. 
The  train  came  to  a  dead  stop  just  four  feet 
short  of  the  helpless  drayman.  A  life  was  saved 
and  the  new  air-brake  was  the  hero  of  the  day. 

Given  the  practical  ability  and  character 
which  Westinghouse  brought  to  his  task,  the 
triumph  of  his  invention  was  now  assured. 
When  it  had  to  hold  its  place  against  competi- 
tors he  was  able  to  meet  varying  conditions  tri- 
umphantly. His  quick-acting  air-brake  proved 
its  worth  on  long  freight-trains  as  well  as  on 
passenger-cars  against  all  electrically  operated 
devices. 

But  this  success  was  to  Westinghouse  but  the 
288 


Photo  copyright  by  Gessford 


George  Westinghouse 


GEORGE  WESTINGHOUSE 

means  of  going  on  to  further  achievement.  He 
turned  his  attention  to  a  block  system  of  safety 
signals  where  the  warning  is  automatically 
flashed  by  electricity  while  compressed  air  does 
the  heavy  work  of  signaling.  Then  the  matter 
of  various  electric  projects  for  lighting,  for 
street  railways,  for  harnessing  the  inexhaustible 
energy  of  Niagara  as  a  source  of  electric  power 
for  millions  of  people,  engaged  his  attention. 
Westinghouse  was  a  name  to  conjure  with  in 
the  industrial  world. 

Always  thinking  in  acts,  and,  when  the  door 
closed  on  one  achievement,  looking  to  the  future 
with  the  cry,  *^Now  for  the  next  job!"  George 
"Westinghouse  went  on  from  one  success  to  an- 
other. Practical  American  that  he  was,  in  his 
years  of  triumphant  service  for  man  in  our  Age 
of  Steel,  making  its  speed  safe  and  its  ways 
sure,  he  recalls  to  our  thought  the  old  saying: 
'^ Words  are  the  daughters  of  earth;  Deeds  are 
the  sons  of  heaven.'' 


289 


THE  STEEL  AGE 


.  .  .  Like  paste  from  a  tube^  a  thin  rope  of  white-hot 
steel  emerged  from  a  shapeless  machine  that  crouched  squat 
on  the  iron  floor,  and  with  a  breath  of  heat  disappeared  in 
the  breast  of  another  monster  that  trembled  with  the  rever- 
beration of  a  hundred  hammers.  And  faster  than  the 
hand  of  my  watch  could  count  the  seconds,  a  hail  of  railroad 
spikes,  still  glowing,  poured  finished  from  the  vitals  of  the 
uncouth  machines.  Plates  of  steel  for  the  flanks  of  ships 
which  will  some  day  transport  the  wares  of  a  trading 
world.  Rails  and  spikes  to  carry  high  over  mountain 
passes  the  flitting  trains  that  make  distant  cities  one.  Bolt, 
rivet  and  girder  for  the  towering  building.  Steel,  steel  for 
its  multifold  destinies,  here  it  is  born  in  heat  and  labor. 
Steel  for  an  age  of  steel. 

Joseph  Husband  :  America  at  Work. 


THE  STEEL  AGE 

FKOM  the  Golden  Age — the  happy  childhood 
of  the  world  when  man  lived  in  a  garden  of 
glorious  hopes  in  care-free  enjoyment  of  a  life 
of  wonder  and  adventure — to  the  Steel  Age,  our 
present  workaday  world  of  big  cities,  of  turning 
wheels  and  toiling  armies  of  machine-workers, 
is  the  whole  story  of  human  struggle  and  pro- 
gress, from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  high  noon 
of  to-day.  Our  modern  life  is  truly  built  upon 
steel  foundations  like  our  bridges  and  sky^ 
scrapers.  Our  locomotives,  monsters  built  of 
wrought-iron  and  steel,  must  have  steel  rails  to 
travel  on.  Speed  called  for  steel  that  is  harder 
than  iron  and  at  the  same  time  more  flexible. 

If  the  steam-engine  had  been  dreamed  of  in 
the  early  days  of  earth  it  could  never  have  be- 
come a  reality  without  sheet-iron.  That  was 
made  possible  in  the  eighteenth  century  when 
the  first  blast-furnace  came  into  use,  where 

293 


COITQUESTS  OF  INVEISTTIOK 

coke  was  burned,  the  iron  ore  smelted,  and  a 
stream  of  slag  driven  off  from  the  purified  iron. 
Rolled  sheet-iron,  the  only  substance  that  the 


Eastern  Clay  Furnace  with  Goat-skin  Bellows  used  in 
production  of  the  famous  Damascus  Blades 

world  had  yet  won  that  was  capable  of  holding 
steam,  was  first  used  in  1728.  Rolled  rods  and 
bars  were  not  made  until  1783 ;  and  the  first 

294 


THE  STEEL  AG^E 

steam-hammer  which  made  the  forging  of  iron 
and  steel  in  great  quantities  possible  was  in- 
vented as  late  as  1838. 

Before  this  time  iron,  which  was  coaxed  from 
its  ore  by  the  use  of  wood  charcoal,  could  be 
handled  only  in  small  masses.  The  iron-worker 
who  wrought  it  into  shape  was  a  skilled  crafts- 
man. The  members  of  the  iron  and  steel  guilds 
of  the  Middle  Ages  formed  an  industrial  clan 
as  proud  of  their  aristocracy  of  brawn  as  any 
knight  in  armor  of  his  noble  lineage.  No  lad 
from  a  peasant's  cottage  or  son  of  a  weaver, 
miller,  tailor,  tanner,  or  musician,  could  hope 
to  win  a  place  beside  the  mighty  men  of  iron. 

But  in  the  Steel  Age  monster  machines  are 
the  aristocrats.  Among  them  men  are  as  pig- 
mies. A  steel  converter,  a  sort  of  huge  iron 
pot  twice  as  tall  as  a  man  and  weighing  more 
than  five  hundred  men,  can  be  manipulated  by 
a  half-grown  boy.  It  was  the  Bessemer  process, 
developed  in  1856,  of  making  cheap  steel  in  vast 
quantities  that  prepared  the  way  for  the  twen- 
tieth-century life  that  we  accept  as  a  matter  of 
course.  Then  followed  in  1864  the  open-hearth 
method,  where  tons  of  white-hot  steel  boil  and 

295 


CONQUESTS  OF  lE^YEIsTTION 

bubble  in  a  bugh  volcano-like  container  from 
wbich  it  is  dipped  ont  by  a  mighty  *4adle," — a 
sort  of  Titan  caldron  it  appears  to  the  awe- 
struck onlooker.  In  this  latter-day  man-made 
Etna  which  may  be  seen  in  cities  like  Pitts- 
burgh or  Bethlehem,  Pennsylvania,  the  twen- 
tieth-century Yulcan  forms  the  bones  and 
sinews  of  our  great  cities,  of  our  railways  and 
our  ships  of  iron  and  steel.  The  modern  ocean 
liner,  a  floating  palace  weighing  fifty  thousand 
tons,  tells  the  whole  story.  In  the  days  before 
the  conquest  of  iron  and  steel  in  the  nineteenth 
century  no  ship  of  much  more  than  two  tons 
crossed  the  seas. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  ^ ^bigness'  that  we  must 
measure  the  worth  of  the  Age  of  Steel.  The  big 
machines  that  save  labor  give  many  opportuni- 
ties for  larger,  richer  life  to  many  men.  They 
can,  it  is  true,  make  death  as  well  as  life, — con- 
struct bridges  and  railroads  to  win  the  wilder- 
ness for  man,  or  battleships  and  cannon  to  tear 
down  in  a  moment  the  work  of  years.  So  they 
can  make  a  man  of  brain  as  well  as  brawn, — 
with  heart  and  mind  set  free  to  make  a  life  as 
well  as  a  living — or  unthinking,  machine-like 

296 


THE  STEEL  AGE 

workers  that  the  wheels  of  progress  grind  down 
and  fling  to  the  scrap-heap. 

Will  the  Age  of  Steel  prove  itself  by  the  men 
it  makes, — finely  tempered,  true  as  steel,  strong 
to  do  and  to  endure?  That  would  be  the  real 
alchemy,  in  which  the  baser  metals  are  turned 
not  merely  into  golden  fortunes,  but  also  into 
happy  human  lives.  That  would  mean  the  dawn- 
ing of  a  new  Golden  Age. 


297 


THE  STOEY  OF  BESSEMER  STEEL 

William  Kelly  (1811-1888) 

WE  live  in  the  midst  of  mighty  forces,  but, 
like  children,  we  are  very  wasteful. 
Little  by  little,  however,  we  learn  how  to  use  to 
better  advantage  the  riches  that  we  have  al- 
lowed to  slip  like  golden  sand  through  our  fin- 
gers as  we  sat  building  our  play-houses  and 
forts  on  the  shore  of  life.  The  great  source  of 
power  is  the  sun.  Without  it  the  wheels  of  life 
would  soon  stop  moving.  Yet  how  much  of  it  is 
every  day  going  to  waste!  Some  day  one  of 
the  earth  children  will  spring  up  and  harness 
a  part  of  this  force,  store  it,  and  put  it  to  work 
where  it  can  do  the  most  good. 

Air  is  another  of  the  great  gifts  that  we  took 
for  granted  and  let  go  to  waste.  *'Free  as 
air,"  we  said,  and  failed  to  use  our  freedom. 
Then  the  day  came  when  a  man  who  discovered 
how  to  use  this  gift  in  a  new  way  made  a  fortune 

298 


WILLIAM  KELLY 

out  of  the  air-brake.  Compressed  air  does  much 
heavy  work  for  us  to-day.  This  is  the  story  of 
the  way  in  which  another  use  of  air  was  dis- 
covered. It  was  found  that  air  might  serve  as 
fuel  in  turning  molten  iron  into  steel.  In  Amer- 
ica, William  Kelly,  and  in  England,  Henry 
Bessemer,  worked  out  this  fashion  of  making 
steel,  which  is  known  as  the  Bessemer  process. 
In  1846,  in  Eddyville,  Kentucky,  not  far  from 
Cincinnati,  there  was  a  brisk,  energetic  iron- 
worker named  Kelly.  '  ^  He  ^s  a  smart  man  but  a 
bit  of  a  crank, '^  people  said:  *'too  many  ideas 
to  make  money  out  of  any  one  of  them.''  But 
he  made  good  iron  pots  and  pans;  the  ^^ Kelly 
kettles ' '  were  well  known  throughout  the  South. 
This  is  the  way  his  good  wrought  iron  was  made. 
In  a  furnace — his  finery  fire,  he  called  it — a 
mass  of  pig-iron  (about  fifteen  hundred  pounds) 
was  placed  between  two  layers  of  charcoal.  The 
charcoal  was  burned  in  large  quantities, — in 
such  large  quantities,  indeed,  that  the  supply  of 
wood  to  be  obtained  near  the  iron-works  was 
rapidly  being  exhausted.  If  more  wood  char- 
coal had  to  be  brought  from  a  distance  it  would 
mean  good-by  to  profits,  and  failure. 

299 


co:^QUESTS  OF  i]srvEisrTio:iT 

But  in  the  very  nick  of  time,  in  the  hour  of 
need,  Kelly  made  his  discovery  that  was  to  mean 
both  economy  of  fuel  and  bigger  results.  He 
was  sitting  before  his  fire  one  day  when  he 
saw  something  that  filled  him  with  wonder, — 
then,  as  he  guessed  something  of  its  meaning, 
with  speechless  delight. 

What  was  it  that  he  saw?  Only  a  tiny  pool  of 
melted  iron  that  was  white-hot  and  luminous  at 
the  edge  of  the  yellow  molten  mass.  At  that 
place  he  saw  that  the  blast  of  air  had  made  the 
metal  it  struck  much  hotter  than  the  rest.  At 
that  point  it  had  become  incandescent  without 
the  use  of  charcoal,  through  the  power  of  air 
alone. 

Then  it  was  that  a  knowledge  of  some  things 
besides  Kelly  kettles  led  to  a  great  discovery. 
He  knew  of  what  air  and  iron  are  composed.  He 
understood  that  when  the  blast  of  air  struck 
the  molten  metal  the  oxygen  in  the  air  worked 
upon  the  carbon  and  other  impurities  in  the  iron 
ore  until  they  were  almost  entirely  burned  out, 
leaving  the  pure  ore  behind.  ^  ^  Oxygen,  the  mys- 
terious element  which  gives  life  to  all  creatures, 
yet  which  burns  up  and  destroys  all  things ;  oxy- 

300 


WILLIAM  KELLY 

gen,  which  may  be  had  without  money  in  infinite 
quantities — ^was  now  to  become  the  creator  of 
cheap  steel.  ^' 


4^^'*=^'' 


A  Eoman  Blast  Furnace  on  a  hill-top  to  catch  the 
breeze 

Kelly  was  intoxicated  with  his  discovery.  He 
walked  about  as  if  on  air.   He  could  talk  of  noth- 

301 


CONQUESTS  OF  mVElSTTIOl^ 

ing  but  the  marvel  of  air, — air  that  would  bum 
in  a  furnace.  People  who  had  before  thought 
him  a  bit  of  a  crank  were  now  sure  that  he  had 
lost  his  wits. 

^*Come  and  see/'  he  said;  *^if  seeing  is  believ- 
ing I  '11  give  you  something  to  think  about. ' ' 

In  his  joy  over  the  truth  that  he  had  found 
he  thought  nothing  of  guarding  his  discovery 
or  taking  out  a  patent.  A  group  of  iron-work- 
ers, the  village  doctor,  and  a  few  others  gath- 
ered about  his  furnace.  Into  the  melted  pig- 
iron  they  saw  the  air  blown  and  the  molten  metal 
begin  to  whiten  and  seethe  like  milk  in  a  sauce- 
pan. Then,  after  some  of  this  white-hot  liquid 
was  cooled  a  bit  of  it  was  seized  by  a  blacksmith, 
flung  on  an  anvil,  and  hammered  into  a  horse- 
shoe. The  thing  had  happened.  Stubborn  pig- 
iron  had  been  made  obedient  to  the  hammer 
without  the  use  of  fuel. 

*^ Surely  the  thing  was  too  absurd,"  writes 
Herbert  N.  Casson,  in  his  **Eomance  of  Steel.'' 
**  Seeing  was  not  believing.  ^Some  crank  '11  be 
burnin '  ice  next, '  said  one.  The  iron  men  shook 
their  heads  and  went  home;  to  boast  in  after 

302 


WILLIAM  KELLY 

years  that  they  had  seen  the  first  public  produc- 
tion of  Bessemer  steel  in  the  world.'' 


Eaising  the   lump  in   early   days   in   America. 

But  for  the  time  Kelly  and  his  big  idea  seemed 
crushed. 

*^What  's  this  wildcat  thing  we  hear  about 
making  steel  out  of  airT'  people  said.     ^*We 

303 


co:n^quests  of  mvENTioisr 

want  it  understood  that  we'll  have  nothing  but 
good,  old-fashioned,  solid  steel/' 

*  *  Come  down  to  earth  and  conduct  your  busi- 
ness in  a  safe  and  sane  fashion,  or  I'll  ask  you 
to  pay  back  the  money  I  Ve  lent  you,"  threat- 
ened his  father-in-law,  who  had  furnished  the 
capital  for  the  iron-works. 

It  seemed  then  as  if  Kelly  settled  down  quite 
satisfactorily.  His  business  went  along  straight 
conservative  lines  and  confidence  in  the  **  Kelly 
kettles ' '  was  restored.  But  back  in  the  forest, 
with  all  the  secrecy  of  a  moonshiner,  he  set  up 
the  converter  for  his  *' pneumatic  process,"  as 
he  styled  it.  There,  with  the  help  of  two  Eng- 
lish iron-workers,  he  would  turn  the  magic  blast 
through  the  cylinder  and  then  ladle  in  the 
melted  pig-iron.  It  was  hard  always  to  get  a 
blast  of  the  right  strength;  if  the  power  failed, 
the  iron  flowed  through  the  air-holes  and 
clogged  them  up. 

The  first  converter  was  soon  replaced  by  one 
with  improvements  which  saved  both  time  and 
fuel  and  taught  him  other  valuable  lessons  which 
led  to  further  improvements  and  new  gains. 
Seven  converters  were  installed  one  after  the 

304 


©  Popular  Science  Monthly 

In  the  Bessemer  process  the  converter,  a  steel  vessel  about  12  feet 
in  diameter  and  20  feet  high,  is  tipped  over  on  its  side  and  molten 
pig-iron  is  run  into  its  mouth;  then  it  is  turned  upright  and  a  blast 
of  air  is  sent  through  it 


©  Popular  Science  Monthly 

In  the  open-hearth  process  the  molten  steel  lies  18  inches  deep 
on  a  bed  about  40  feet  long  by  16  feet  wide.  Here  the  current  of  hot 
gas  and  air  is  shown  being  forced  above  and  around  the  molten  mass. 
Ore  of  less  purity  than  that  used  in  the  Bessemer  process  is  success- 
fully dealt  with  by  the  open-hearth  method 


WILLIAM  KELLY 

other  in  the  forest  hiding-place  and  still  the  in- 
ventor was  not  satisfied  that  he  had  solved  his 
problem. 

When  in  1856  Kelly  learned  that  an  English 
inventor,  Henry  Bessemer,  had  applied  to  the 
United  States  Patent  Office  for  a  patent  for  the 
pneumatic  process,  the  Irishman  and  the  Yan- 
kee in  him  rose  together  to  defend  his  rights 
and  America's  claim  to  the  honor  of  the  inven- 
tion. He  had  little  difficulty  in  proving  that  his 
^* air-boiling''  method,  as  the  neighbors  called 
it,  had  been  a  matter  of  town  talk  ten  years 
before  Bessemer  came  forward  with  his  claim, 
and  the  American  patent  was  given  to  Kelly.  It 
was  the  Englishman,  however,  who  made  the 
new  process  steel  a  commercial  success  and 
through  it  a  fortune  of  ten  million  dollars  and 
the  honor  of  knighthood.  In  America,  even,  he 
was  lauded  as  the  original  inventor  by  iron- 
masters who  hoped  to  avoid  paying  a  royalty  to 
Kelly;  and  the  process  to-day  bears  his  name. 
But  Kelly  was  not  unrewarded.  The  one-time 
crank  was  now  called  a  genius  and  his  royalties 
in  all  amounted  to  half  a  million  dollars. 

305 


COITQUESTS  OF  INVENTIOlSr 

What,  then,  is  Bessemer  steel?  It  is  not  like 
the  old-fashioned  steel  which  can  be  hardened 
and  tempered  to  form  tools  and  cutlery.  It  is 
**niild"  steel  (contains  less  carbon) ;  is  strong, 
easily  cut  or  bent  into  any  required  form,  and 
is,  at  the  same  time,  free  from  brittleness.  It 
is,  indeed,  a  sort  of  wrought-iron  (without  the 
mixture  of  slag)  that  is  ideally  suited  to  the 
making  of  rails  and  the  beams  of  bridges  and 
buildings,  as  well  as  engines  and  machinery. 
The  Age  of  Steel  was  made  possible  by  this  air- 
boiling  process  which  is  pictured  in  L.  W. 
Spring's  **Non  Technical  Chats  on  Iron  and 
Steel:" 


One  sees,  a  little  ^dinky'  engine  come  shooting  into  the 
converter  building  with  its  ladle  of  molten  iron  from  the 
"mixer".  With  America's  time-saving  routine  not  a  single 
minute  is  lost  while  emptying  the  metal  into  the  converter, 
now  in  a  horizontal  position.  Almost  before  the  ladle  is  out 
of  the  way,  the  converter  swings  to  the  upright  position 
with  the  blast  already  on.  Reddish-brown  smoke  and  a 
shower  of  sparks  come  from  the  converter.  These  grad- 
ually develop  into  a  flame.  After  from  three  to  five  min- 
utes half  of  the  silicon  and  manganese  have  been  burned 
out.  If  the  temperature  of  the  metal  and  other  conditions 
have  become  right  the  carbon  then  begins  to  bum.  This 
gives  a  change  in  the  nature  of  the  flame,  which  becomes 

306 


WILLIAM  KELLY 

large  and  of  a  dazzling  whiteness.  An  experienced  blower 
can  judge  through  every  period  of  the  operation  of  the 
condition  of  his  metal  and  just  how  things  are  progressing. 
After  some  minutes  the  flame  begins  to  waver  and  later 
drops,  i.e.  there  is  scarcely  a  flame  at  all. 

Now  the  converter  is  lowered  and  enough 
carbon,  manganese,  and  silicon  put  in  to  give 
the  steel  the  required  hardness  and  flexibility. 
Then  this  molten  Bessemer  steel  is  ladled  out 
by  means  of  mighty  caldrons  into  ingot  molds 
which  are  waiting  on  railway  trucks  to  carry 
the  ingots  to  the  ^  ^  stripper, ' '  which  removes  the 
molds,  leaving  behind  the  white-hot  ingots  of 
two  tons  each.  These  are  lowered  into  soaking 
pits  heated  by  gas,  where  the  ingots  are  brought 
to  an  even  temperature  and  consistency,  when 
they  are  sent  to  the  rolling-mill.  There  the 
white-hot  ingots  are  rolled,  drawn  out,  and 
transformed  into  steel  plates,  rails,  and  beams 
for  bridges  or  buildings,  or  some  of  the  many 
other  things  of  our  new  steel  age.  Taking  the 
place  of  cast-iron,  which  cracked,  and  wrought- 
iron,  which  bent,  under  strain,  this  new  metal, 
which  is  merely  tempered  iron — that  is,  iron 
that  has  been  rendered  at  once  hard  and  flex- 

307 


CONQUESTS  OF  iJsrvE:NrTioisr 

ible — provided  at  the  right  moment  the  material 
for  making  the  mighty  engines  and  machines 
that  the  inventions  of  Watt  and  his  successors 
called  into  being. 

What  a  place  is  the  steel-mill!  Here  is  a 
playground  where  the  Titan  forces  that  tossed 
about  in  the  geologic  past  the  mighty  bonlders 
and  rolled  up  mountain  ranges  leaving  the  scars 
of  sheer  abysses,  and  shado\vy  canons,  might 
find  rare  sport  in  the  world  of  to-day.  An  ingot 
of  two  tons  reaches  the  press  at  white  heat, 
sending  out  a  dazzling  light  that  breaks  in  rays 
like  sunbeams  on  the  walls  and  roof.  There  is 
the  steam-hammer  (which  does  the  smaller 
work  by  drop-forging)  with  a  ^ ^falling  weight'' 
of  from  five  to  twenty-five  tons.  But  this  is  a 
mere  trifle  compared  with  the  hydraulic  press, 
which  can  bring  to  bear  a  pressure  of  from 
two  thousand  to  1^ye  thousand  tons  in  the  final 
stage  of  the  forging. 

Can  you  hear  something  of  the  epic  story  of 
steel  in  the  singing  rails  that  herald  the  onrush 
of  a  giant  locomotive  weighing  more  than  half 
a  million  pounds?  Can  you  see  the  triumphal 
arch  of  the  conqueror  in  the  bridge  that  has 

308 


WILLIAM  KELLY 

been  flung  across  space  to  allow  the  distance- 
defying  monster  to  leap  from  shore  to  shore? 
That,  too,  like  the  lofty  buildings  of  great  cities, 
writes  in  an  impressive  skyline  the  marvelous 
story  of  steel. 


309 


MACHINES  FOR  THE  MH^LIONS 

Henry  Ford  (1863-        ) 

Round  as  a  biscuit, 

Busy  as  a  bee, 
The  prettiest  little  thing, 

You  ever  did  see! 

HOW  many  children  have  said  in  their 
happy  singsong  this  riddle-rhyme  of  the 
watch, — ^the  thing  that  is  to  them  the  chief 
pocket-wonder  of  their  world.  All  grown-nps 
know  the  power  of  the  *^ tick- tick''  to  amuse  and 
as  a  most  particular  favor  sometimes  open  up 
the  magic  case  to  let  a  small  friend  ^'see  the 
wheels  go  round."  To  all  children  the  sight  of 
the  tiny  wheels  is  a  wonderful  thing;  to  some 
children  it  is  school  and  holiday  rolled  into  one, 
— the  beginning  of  their  real  interest  in  life  and 
their  life-work. 

Such  a  boy  was  Eli  Whitney,  who  on  one 
thrilling  day  when  his  father  was  at  church 

310 


HENRY  FORD 

dared  to  take  that  gentleman  ^s  precious  watch 
to  pieces.  He  had  at  stolen  moments  studied 
the  little  wheels  and  dreamed  about  the  way 
they  fitted  together  and  worked.  Now  he  longed 
above  everything  else  to  take  them  apart,  touch 
them  one  by  one,  and  learn  the  trick  of  each 
which  was  the  secret  of  the  marvelous  team- 
work that  ticked  off  seconds  and  hours.  That 
watch  was  Eli  Whitney's  first  real  school.  He 
learned  as  he  struggled  with  its  wheels  the  first 
principles  of  machinery,  and  the  longing  to 
know  more.  That  is  the  story  of  the  cotton- 
gin. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  George  Stephen- 
son also  learned  from  clocks  and  watches  many 
things  which  he  later  put  to  use  in  the  making 
of  locomotives.  This  is  the  story  of  another  boy 
whose  first  school  was  a  watch.  From  it  he 
learned  to  love  the  ways  of  machines.  It  may 
be  said  that  the  idea  of  the  Ford  motor-car  and 
the  factory  where  everything  goes  ^4ike  clock- 
work'' came  from  a  watch. 

Little  Henry  Ford  was  looking  with  delight 
at  the  real  watch  which  a  boy  friend  was  ex- 
hibiting proudly.    Both  boys  forgot  that  it  was 

311 


co:^QUESTS  OF  i:n"ventio:n' 

Sunday  and  that  their  mothers  expected  them 
to  follow  along  properly  into  church. 

*^0h,  ho!"  said  Henry,  ^^your  watch  isn't 
going.  Let  me  see  if  I  can't  set  it  off."  Here 
was  the  chance  he  had  longed  for  as  far  back 
as  he  could  remember, — to  see  the  inside  of  a 
watch.  Fearful  but  fascinated.  Will  Bennett 
handed  over  his  treasure  and,  forgetting  church 
and  possible  punishment  in  store  at  home,  they 
went  together  to  the  shop  of  the  Bennett  farm. 
There  Henry  made  a  small  screw-driver  by  fil- 
ing a  shingle  nail  and  set  off  on  the  big  adven- 
ture. Church  was  over,  dinner  time  came  and 
went,  the  long  spring  afternoon  was  drawing 
toward  evening,  and  still  Henry  was  working 
with  the  tiny  cogs  and  springs.  The  anxious 
owner  of  the  watch,  torn  between  despair  and 
hope,  was  held  in  leash  by  Henry 's  enthusiasm. 

^*You  said  you  'd  put  it  together  again  all 
right!"  he  was  saying  for  the  hundredth  time 
when  their  anxious  parents  descended  upon 
them. 

*^An'  so  I  would  if  folks  'd  only  let  me  be 
till  I  could  finish!"  Henry  declared  hotly.  He 
had,  indeed,  fitted  most  of  the  parts  together 

312 


HENRY  FOED 

and  he  passionately  longed  to  prove,  by  setting 
tliem  going,  that  they  were  in  working  order. 

*'I  suppose, '^  Henry  Ford  said  years  after- 
ward in  recalling  that  great  day,  ^ '  that  we  came 
in  for  all  the  punishment  that  was  thought  right 
and  proper.  But  I  have  forgotten  about  that. 
What  I  do  remember  is  the  way  I  began  to 
experiment  with  all  the  clocks  and  watches  with- 
in reach.  Only  my  father's  watch  was  sacred. 
Every  clock  in  the  house  shuddered  when  it  saw 
me  coming.'^ 

The  ordinary  run  of  the  farm  tasks  had  little 
charm  for  Henry.  They  were  always  the  same 
tiresome  round  with  nothing  new  to  work  out. 
In  the  farm  shop,  however,  he  found  something 
more  to  his  taste.  Here  were  tools  like  so  many 
hands  trained  to  special  work,  needing  only  the 
mind  to  direct  their  effort. 

Tool-power  was  a  wonderful  thing.  He  set 
himself  to  the  task  of  learning  to  use  it.  It 
was  a  great  day  when  he  turned  out  a  device  for 
opening  and  closing  gates.  Every  time  his 
father  was  saved  from  jumping  off  the  wagon 
to  swing  back  a  gate  he  should  realize  that 

313 


COI^QUESTS  OF  mVEIsTTIOE^ 

something  worth  while  came  of  *  *  fussing  about 
in  the  shop." 

When  Henry  was  fourteen  his  world  was  sud- 
denly changed  by  the  death  of  his  mother.  In 
that  busy  home,  where  the  daily  round  had 
always  gone  with  the  happy  regularity  of  clock- 
work, the  mainspring  was  broken.  Now  the 
farm  duties  were  empty  of  all  interest  and  the 
hours  that  the  boy  could  spend  in  the  shop 
seemed  the  only  real  part  of  his  days.  From 
scraps  of  old  plows,  harrows,  and  wagon  tires, 
he  made  a  small  steam-engine  that  really  went. 
He  had  a  moment  of  rare  triumph  when  he 
charged  down  that  pasture  lot  at  ten  miles  an 
hour,  tooting  an  ear-splitting  whistle,  but  no 
one  seemed  particularly  impressed  except  the 
frightened  cows. 

The  mechanical  journals  which  he  devoured 
as  other  boys  do  tales  of  adventure  pointed  the 
way  to  big  opportunities  in  the  iron-works  at 
Detroit.  He  dreamed  of  going  there  to  seek 
his  fortune  with  the  things  he  loved,  great 
engines  that  did  the  tasks  of  giants.  Then  there 
came  a  day  in  his  sixteenth  year,  when  spring 
was  in  the  air,  that  he  suddenly  decided  to  take 

314 


HENRY  FOED 

matters  in  his  own  hands  and  make  his  dreams 
come  true.  His  seat  at  scliool  was  empty  that 
day. 

The  train  that  drew  into  Detroit  gave  a 
long  whistle  of  triumph  as  if  to  proclaim  that 
the  great  adventure  of  living  was  fairly  begun 
for  one  boy  at  least.  It  did  not  take  him  long 
to  make  his  way  to  the  factory  where  steam- 
engines  were  made. 

^'I  'm  looking  for  a  job,"  he  said  to  the  big, 
red-shirted  foreman. 

Something  in  the  determined  voice  made  itself 
felt  over  the  roar  of  the  machinery  and  the 
hurry  and  confusion  of  the  works.  The  fore- 
man stopped  long  enough  to  look  the  boy  over 
and  to  recall  that  an  extra  helper  or  two  would 
come  in  handy  just  then.  ^*Come  to  work  to- 
morrow. I  11  see  what  you  can  do,'*  he  said. 
^^Pay  two  and  one  half  a  week.'^ 

For  a  number  of  weeks  Henry  worked  in  the 
machine-shop  from  seven  till  six,  sometimes  at 
the  forges,  sometimes  making  castings  or  as- 
sembling the  parts  of  the  engine.  In  the  eve- 
ning he  worked  for  two  hours  at  a  jeweler's, 
mending  clocks  and  watches.    For  of  course  it 

315 


CONQUESTS  OF  mVENTIOJST 

was  impossible,  even  in  those  good  old  days  of 
cheap  living,  to  find  a  clean,  wholesome  place  to 
eat  and  sleep  for  two  and  a  half  dollars  a  week. 
As  it  was,  the  boy  must  often  have  missed  the 
abundance  of  the  farm  kitchen  as  he  did  the 
fresh  country  air  and  the  home  faces,  but  his 
work  had  always  for  him  the  zest  of  adventure, 
because  there  was  always  some  fresh  problem 
to  be  solved. 

His  father,  who  had  followed  him  to  Detroit 
and  talked  with  him  earnestly,  said :  ^ '  If  this  is 
the  school  of  your  choice,  stick  to  it  as  long  as 
you  want.  You  know  where  your  home  is ;  it  '11 
be  there  when  you  find  yourself  wanting  some- 
thing besides  engines." 

As  the  days  went  by  an  idea  came  again  and 
again  to  the  young  machinist,  who  had  never 
known  what  it  was  to  work  like  a  machine.  Al- 
ways on  the  alert  to  discover  how  to  do  some- 
thing in  a  better  way,  he  saw  that  there  was 
waste  of  time  and  effort  at  many  points  in  the 
great  factory. 

*^See  here,"  he  said  one  day  to  the  man  next 
him;  *^ nothing  's  ever  made  twice  alike.  We 
waste  a  lot  of  time  and  material  assembling 

316 


HENRY  FORD 

these  engines.  That  piston-rod  will  have  to  be 
made  over;  it  won't  fit  the  cylinder." 

''Oh,  well/'  was  the  easy-going  reply,  ^4t 
won't  take  long  to  fit  it.  We  do  as  well  as 
we  can." 

But  Henry  had  in  his  mind  a  factory  where 
there  would  be  no  waste  of  man-power  or  of 
tool-power ;  where  each  worker  would  be  so  per- 
fectly fitted  to  his  job  that  there  were  no  false 
motions.  One  day  when  he  had  in  his  hand  a 
new  watch  for  which  he  had  paid  three  dollars, 
he  had  a  vision, — a  vision  of  a  plant  where 
everything  went  like  clockwork, ' '  a  gigantic  ma- 
chine taking  in  bars  of  steel  at  one  end  and  turn- 
ing out  completed  watches  at  the  other. ' ' 

''There  would  be  a  fortune  in  it,"  he  exulted, 
*'and  for  the  millions  watches  like  this  in  my 
hand  for  fifty  cents ! ' ' 

It  is  possible  that  people  might  to-day  be 
using  Ford  watches  at  home  instead  of  riding 
about  in  Ford  cars  if  circumstances  had  not 
called  the  dreamer  back  to  the  home  acres  at 
this  time.  His  father  was  ill  and  there  was  need 
of  his  hand  at  the  helm.  Then  when  there  was 
no  longer  the  same  need,  he  still  stayed,  for 

317 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

there  was  a  country  girl  wlio  made  home  ways 
seem  better  than  anything  else,  even  better  than 
the  ways  of  smooth-running  machines. 

But  in  a  home  of  his  own  on  a  thriving  farm, 
he  sat  by  the  lamp  in  the  evenings  reading  the 
magazines  that  told  about  the  world  of  fac- 
tories and  machine  ideas.  He  had  seen  some- 
thing about  a  Frenchman  who  had  invented  a 
horseless  carriage,  run  by  an  engine.  The  idea 
fascinated  him. 

Not  long  afterward,  on  a  visit  to  Detroit,  he 
saw  a  steam-driven  fire-engine  go  puffing  down 
the  street.  He  stared  at  it  as  if  he  had  never 
seen  anything  of  the  sort  before.  *^Such 
waste,"  he  muttered  to  himself.  **More  than 
half  the  power  used  in  carrying  that  huge  boiler 
of  water  about!''  He  couldn't  forget  that 
steam-engine.  It  had  to  be  heavy  because  one 
couldn't  have  driving-steam  without  boiling 
water.  How,  then,  was  one  to  get  away  from 
the  weight  and  the  waste  of  power!  Could  the 
engine  be  run  in  some  other  way!  What  of 
these  gas-engines  that  were  being  tried  in  some 
places'?  Could  a  simple,  practical  engine  be 
run  by  gasolene? 

318 


HENRY  FORD 

This  idea  filled  his  days  now.  While  he 
worked  in  the  fields  he  was  dreaming  of  gas- 
engines  put  to  work  for  people  in  a  way  to 
help  most. 

^ '  I  'm  going  to  leave  farming  and  go  back  to 
the  city,  where  I  can  have  a  chance  to  make  my 
engine/'  he  announced  one  day  to  his  wife. 

Of  course  it  seemed  a  wild  thing  to  do.  But 
as  it  was  plain  that  he  would  think  of  nothing 
else,  one  had  to  make  the  best  of  it.  After  all, 
he  would  soon  find  out  if  there  were  anything 
in  his  scheme,  and  either  finish  it  or  throw  it 
on  the  scrap-heap.  So  his  wife  set  herseK  cheer- 
fully to  the  task  of  moving  to  the  big  city. 

Several  years  passed, — ^years  full  of  hard 
work,  first  as  engine-doctor  and  then  as  one  of 
the  subordinate  managers  in  the  Edison  elec- 
tric-lighting plant  of  Detroit.  But  they  were 
years  of  hopeful  adventure,  because  the  engine 
idea  was  taking  shape  in  iron  and  steel.  Many 
times  Henry  Ford 's  enthusiasm  kept  him  in  the 
work-shed  at  the  rear  of  his  house  all  night. 

^*How  could  you  stand  that  sort  of  thing  when 
you  had  to  be  at  work  next  morning?"  Ford 
was  asked. 

319 


CO:^QUESTS  OF  mvE^Tio:^^ 

^^I  was  never  sick,''  he  replied.  ^^It  isn't 
overworking  that  breaks  men  down,  if  they  have 
heart  in  their  work.  Overplaying  and  overeat- 
ing make  most  of  the  trouble. ' ' 

It  was  a  queer-looking  thing  to  have  taken  so 
many  months  of  planning  and  contriving,  that 
first  engine.  A  piece  of  pipe  salvaged  from  the 
scrap-heap  at  the  Edison  plant  made  its  one 
cylinder.  Four  antiquated  bicycle  wheels  fitted 
with  extra  heavy  rims  and  pneumatic  tires  were 
mounted  on  a  light  buggy  frame  made,  like  all 
the  rest,  from  odds  and  ends  of  material.  But 
it  went ! 

It  was  three  o  'clock  on  a  dark  winter  morning 
when  that  first  Ford  car  chugged  out  of  its  shed 
on  its  first  journey  into  the  world.  The  ground 
was  covered  with  slush  and  the  rain  came  down 
in  torrents,  but  the  moment  was  one  of  triumph. 
The  engine  worked !  Each  throb  and  jerk  was 
a  promise  of  success,  but  also  a  call  to  further 
effort.    There  was  a  long  road  ahead. 

* '  I  knew  my  real  work  with  the  car  was  just 
begun,"  he  explained  afterward.  *^I  had  to  get 
capital  somehow,  start  a  factory,  get  people 
interested, — everything.      Besides,    I    saw    a 

320 


Jf 


^ 


ilS5f/^,M:i,    ->" 


.ilii^A,^V.;wJ:'5^  .■/ 


First  American  automobile,  Duryea's  model,  in  National  Museum, 
Washington,  D.C. 


HENRY  FORD 

chance  for  a  lot  of  improvements  in  that  car/^ 
As  we  have  seen,  Henry  Ford  was  not  the 
inventor  of  the  gas-engine.  He  had  read  in  his 
machinist's  journal  of  the  work  of  Lenoir  in 
France,  Otto  in  Germany,  and  others.  The 
Frenchman  Lebon,  in  1804,  proposed  firing 
compressed  gas  and  air  by  an  electric  spark. 
In  America,  Charles  E.  Duryea  (a  bicycle 
worker  like  the  Wright  brothers)  made  in 
Springfield,  Massachusetts,  the  first  American 
automobile.  A  man  named  Haynes — of  Kokomo, 
Indiana — was  a  close  second.  The  honor  of 
the  invention  of  the  gas-engine  which  has  made 
possible  both  the  automobile  and  the  aeroplane 
belongs  to  no  one  man. 

Ford  was  one  of  a  number  of  men  who  were 
struggling  to  make  practical  gasolene  motors. 
He  differed  from  the  others,  however,  in  that 
his  goal  was  a  cheap  car  for  the  many,  not  an- 
other luxurious  carriage  for  the  few.  *^i 
thought  the  more  people  who  had  a  good  thing 
the  better.  My  car  was  going  to  be  cheap,  so  the 
man  that  needed  it  most  could  afford  to  buy  it,'' 
he  said.  ''Then  I  saw  it  put  to  work  on  the 
farm,  saving  many  from  the  grinding  toil  I 

321 


CONQUESTS  OF  INYEl^TION 

knew  at  first-hand.''  He  succeeded,  as  all  the 
world  knows,  in  making  his  car  and  in  building 
up  the  largest  automobile  business  in  America. 
"What  was  the  secret  of  his  success! 

^'Ford  is  a  genius,"  declared  Edison;  ^^ there 
is  no  other  way  of  explaining  him.  I  put  to 
him  a  problem  of  the  laboratory,  and  while  men 
with  the  technical  training  of  experts  calculate 
and  differ.  Ford  goes  through  the  thicket  of 
non-essentials,  straight  to  the  point,  as  if  by 
instinct.  So  it  is  with  the  organization  of  his 
business:  his  genius  for  human  engineering 
was  shown  in  the  work  with  and  for  his 
workers. ' ' 

Some  might  see  the  reason  for  Henry  Ford's 
success  in  his  single-mindedness.  As  the  mak- 
ing of  his  engine  had  been  the  mainspring  of 
his  existence  for  ten  years,  so  the  ideal  of  a 
business  with  everything  as  perfectly  adjusted 
as  clockwork  grew  and  developed.  The  prin- 
ciple of  standardization  which  he  had  once 
thought  of  applying  to  the  making  of  cheap 
watches  was  now  applied  to  turning  out  motor- 
cars and  tractors  for  the  millions.  There  was 
to  be  no  room  for  waste.    Every  part  was  to  be 

322 


HENEY  FORD 

machined  to  exact  size,  so  that  no  fitting  after- 
ward in  the  assembling-room  should  be  re- 
quired. When  the  machine  ^^ found  itself/'  it 
would  be  seen  that  all  parts  fitted  together  to 
the  fraction  of  an  inch.  As  the  Ford  engine 
worked,  so  also  did  the  standardization  idea. 

So,  too,  was  Ford's  intelligent  generalship  in 
the  management  of  his  army  of  workers  a  factor 
in  his  success. 

**Does  it  pay,''  says  Henry  Ford,  *^to  give 
the  workers  a  chance  for  a  contented  life? 
What  makes  better  workers  must  make  better 
work  and  better  business.  The  whole  world  is 
like  a  machine,  every  part  as  important  as  every 
other  part.  We  should  all  work  together,  not 
against  each  other.  Anything  that  is  good  for 
all  the  parts  of  the  machine  is  good  for  each 
one  of  them." 

What  is  the  ^'conquest"  of  the  cheap  motor- 
car? Ask  the  man  in  the  street  who  uses  it  in 
his  business  and  who  tours  in  it  during  his  holi- 
day hours.  Making  a  life  is  as  important  clear- 
ly as  making  a  living,  and  the  automobile  helps 
with  both  by  bringing  the  country  close  to  the 
city, — ^making  it  possible  for  the  dwellers  in 

323 


COI^QUESTS  OF  mVENTION 

streets  to  taste  the  joys  in  the  open,  and  for 
farmers  to  cover  in  an  hour  the  journey  to  town 
and  city  that  formerly  took  half  a  day. 

The  railroad  broke  down  the  barriers  that 
separated  city  from  city  and  town  from  town. 
The  motor-car  has  carried  further  this  work  of 
destroying  distance  and  addinj*  to  life  by  the 
saving  of  time  and  toil. 


324 


THE  CONQUEST  OF  THE  AIR 

Samuel  Piekpont  Langley  (1834-1906),  Wilbur 

Wright  (1867-1912),  and  Orville  Wright 

(1871-         ) 

A  SMALL  boy  was  lying  on  a  hilltop  watch- 
ing the  flight  of  a  sea-gull. 

'*How  does  he  do  itT'  he  wondered  aloud. 
' '  How  is  it  that  he  can  float  about  like  that  with- 
out any  effort!  It  is  only  when  he  begins  to 
mount  into  the  air  that  he  flaps  his  wings ;  now 
he  is  hardly  moving  them  at  all.  He  is  held  up 
by  the  air  just  as  a.  kite  is.  ^ ' 

This  was  not  the  first  time  that  young  Samuel 
Langley  had  watched  the  sea-gulPs  flight.  In 
fancy  he,  too,  was  soaring,  held  up  magically  by 
a  wonderful  understanding  of  the  power  of 
the  air. 

'  ^  There  must  be  something  about  the  air  that 
makes  it  easy,"  he  pondered.  *'The  birds  have 
the  secret,  but  I  can't  even  guess  it!'' 

325 


COISTQUESTS  OF  mVEI^TION 

That  night  at  dinner  he  surprised  the  family 
by  saying  suddenly :  '  *  Birds  swim  in  the  air  as 
fish  swim  in  the  water.  We  have  learned  the 
secret  of  letting  water  hold  us  up ;  why  can't  we 
do  the  same  with  the  ocean  of  the  airf 

*^What  of  good  old  Gravity,  my  sonT'  teased 
his  father.  ^  ^  That  law  is  still  alive  and  active, 
is  it  not?'' 

^^But,"  persisted  the  boy,  *Hhe  hawks  and 
the  gulls  are  heavier  than  the  air.  There  is 
nothing  of  the  balloon  sort  about  them." 

^^But  they  have  wings,  my  boy,  and  they 
know  how  to  fly,"  returned  Mr.  Langley,  look- 
ing at  the  boy's  puckered  brow  with  amusement. 

**  Well,  why  should  it  be  such  a  joke, — the  idea 
of  a  person  learning  to  fly?"  returned  Samuel. 
*^Why  shouldn't  people  make  a  sort  of  airship 
with  wings  and  sail  through  the  air!" 

Many  boys  besides  young  Langley  had 
dreamed  of  winning  wings.  Indeed,  in  all  ages 
of  the  world  people  have  longed  to  slip  the 
moorings  that  tie  them  to  earth  and  float  ^  *  over 
the  hills  and  far  away"  with  the  freedom  of 
flight. 

Samuel  Langley  went  beyond  wishing  and 
326 


SAMUEL  P.  LANGLEY 

longing.  He  studied  the  flight  of  hawks  and 
gulls  carefully  and  noted  that  their  wings  were 
motionless  except  when  they  turned  them  at  a 
different  angle  to  meet  a  new  current  of  wind. 
^  *  I  began  then, ' '  he  said,  ^ '  dimly  to  suspect  that 
the  invisible  ocean  of  the  air  was  an  unknown 
realm  of  marvelous  possibilities.'' 

Years  after,  Professor  Langley,  the  world- 
famous  scientist  and  head  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institute,  came  back  to  this  problem  that  had 
fascinated  him  as  a  boy.  ^^  Nature  has  solved 
the  puzzle  of  flight ;  why  not  manT '  he  said.  He 
began  to  study  the  mathematics  of  flying  and 
became  convinced  that  the  formulas  given  in 
the  books  concerning  the  increase  of  power  with 
increase  of  velocity  were  all  wrong.  *^At  that 
rate  a  swallow  would  have  to  have  the  strength 
of  a  man!''  he  exclaimed.  He  devised  a  sort  of 
whirling  table  with  surfaces  like  wings  to  test 
with  exactness  just  how  much  horse-power  was 
required  to  hold  up  a  surface  of  a  certain  weight 
while  it  was  moving  rapidly  through  the  air, 
and  by  this  means  discovered  and  demonstrated 
the  fundamental  law  of  flight,  known  as  Lang- 
ley's  Law,  which  tells  us  that  the  faster  a  body 

327 


COI^QUESTS  OF  INYEI^^TIOIvr 

travels  through  the  air  the  less  is  the  energy 
required  to  keep  it  afloat. 

After  proving  that  birds  are  held  up  like 
kites  by  pressure  of  the  air  against  the  under 
surface  of  their  wings,  he  made  experiments  to 
show  that  their  soaring  flight  is  aided  by  *^the 
internal  work  of  the  wind;"  that  is,  by  shifts 
in  the  currents  of  air,  particularly  by  rising 
trends,  which  the  winged  creatures  utilize  by 
instinct.  Watch  a  hawk  as  it  circles  through 
the  air,  dipping  its  wings  now  at  this  angle, 
now  at  that,  and  you  will  realize  that  the  wind 
is  his  true  and  tried  ally.  He  trusts  himself  to 
the  sweep  and  swirl  of  the  air,  just  as  a  swim- 
mer relies  on  the  buoyancy  of  the  water. 

Having  demonstrated  so  much  through  ex- 
periments with  his  whirling  table.  Dr.  Langley 
determined  to  construct  a  real  flying-machine, 
with  wide-spreading  planes  to  sustain  it  in  the 
air  while  it  was  driven  along  by  a  steam-engine 
which  furnished  power  to  the  propellers.  This 
machine,  which  he  called  an  ^'aerodrome''  (air 
run),  was  put  to  the  test  on  May  6th,  1896.  Dr. 
Alexander  Graham  Bell,  who  was  present  at 
the  trial  and  who  took  pictures  of  the  machine 

328 


SAMUEL  P.  LANGLEY 

in  mid-air,  declared,  ^'No  one  who  witnessed  the 
extraordinary  spectacle  of  a  steam-engine  flying 
with  wings  in  the  air,  like  a  great  soaring  bird, 
could  doubt  for  one  moment  the  practicability 
of  mechanical  flight/' 

Though  his  effort  to  carry  his  experiments  to 
the  point  of  commercial  success  ended  in  dis- 
appointment, Langley  never  lost  faith  in  the 
future  of  his  airship. 

^^I  have  done  the  best  I  could  with  a  difficult 
task,"  he  said,  shortly  before  his  death  in  1906, 
^^with  results  which,  it  may  be  hoped,  will  be 
useful  to  others.  The  world  miist  realize  that  a 
new  possibility  has  come  to  it,  and  that  the  great 
universal  highway  overhead  is  soon  to  be 
opened." 

While  the  crowd  was  still  laughing  at  the 
absurdity  of  a  learned  man's  attempting  to  fly, 
there  were  eager  young  men  seriously  at  work 
on  the  problem.  *^We  had  been  interested  in 
flight  since  our  toy-making  days, ' '  said  Wilbur 
Wright,  *^but  it  was  the  knowledge  that  the 
head  of  the  most  prominent  scientific  institution 
in  America  believed  in  the  possibility  of  human 
flight  which  led  us  to  enter  heart  and  soul  upon 

329 


COE^QUESTS  OF  IISTYEI^TIO]^ 

the  quest.  He  recommended  to  us,  moreover, 
the  books  which  enabled  us  to  form  sane  ideas 
at  the  outset.  It  was  a  helping  hand  at  a  critical 
time,  and  we  shall  always  be  grateful. ' ' 

So  it  is  that  the  work  of  one  man  is  passed 
along  as  a  torch  to  those  who  carry  on  after 
him. 

Why  did  Wilbur  and  Orville  Wright,  the  in- 
ventors of  the  first  successful  heavier-than-air 
flying-machine,  take  up  the  problem  of  flight? 
Get  a  lively  child  in  the  habit  of  thinking,  then 
give  him  a  live  subject  to  think  about,  and 
something  is  bound  to  come  of  it. 

There  was  a  simple  house  in  Dayton,  Ohio, 
not  very  different  from  its  neighbors ;  but  it  was 
a  real  home  with  windows  that  opened  out  on 
the  world  of  ideas.  Books  were  the  familiar 
friends  of  the  children  who  lived  there  and  they 
learned  to  use  their  eyes  and  to  think  about 
what  they  saw. 

One  day  their  father  came  in  looking  mysteri- 
ous. There  was  something  partly  hidden  in  his 
hand.  What  could  it  be  ?  Before  they  could  get 
more  than  the  most  tantalizing  glimpse  he 
tossed  it  suddenly  into  the  air.    Then,  instead 

330 


THE  WRIGHT  BROTHERS 

of  falling  to  the  floor  as  the  boys  expected,  it 
flew  across  the  room  until  it  struck  the  ceiling. 
It  fluttered  about  there  a  few  moments,  to  the 
delight  and  wonder  of  Wilbur  and  Orville,  who 
cried,  ^^It^s  a  bat!"  Then  it  fell  to  the  floor; 
Picking  it  up  and  examining  it  eagerly,  the  boys 
saw  a  *' light  frame  of  cork  and  bamboo  cov- 
ered with  paper,  which  formed  two  screws, 
driven  in  opposite  directions  by  rubber  bands 
under  torsion." 

^^It  's  a  helicopter,"  said  their  father. 
Bishop  Milton  Wright  was  a  teacher  and  an 
editor  who  was  known  to  the  people  of  the  com- 
munity as  a  man  of  wide  knowledge.  He  had 
been,  too,  a  great  traveler,  and  had  brought 
back  to  that  home  in  Dayton  ideas  from  many 
parts  of  the  world.  He  explained  how  the  new 
toy  rose  in  the  air  by  means  of  its  spinning, 
screw-like  propellers.  But  helicopter  (which 
their  father  said  meant  ^'screw-wing")  did  not 
mean  as  much  to  them  as  their  own  name  did, 
so  the  boys  continued  to  call  it  a  bat,  and,  since 
it  was  a  frail  toy  with  a  short  life,  they  tried 
their  hand  at  making  other  ''bats." 

What  was  to  hinder  their  making  really  size- 
331 


CPI^QUESTS  OF  mVEN^TIOiT 

able  ones  ?  Alas !  it  turned  out  that  the  larger 
the  bat  the  less  at  home  it  was  in  the  air.  They 
turned  then  to  kites  as  the  really  reliable  flyers. 
Their  kites  were  the  talk  of  the  town  boys  until 
'they  decided  that  they  were  too  old  to  be  seen 
flying  kites. 

But  all  the  time  their  kites  had  been  tugging 
at  the  strings  they  held,  the  puzzle  of  flight  had 
been  tugging  at  their  fancy.  They  tried  to 
understand  something  of  the  behavior  of  their 
toys  as  the  wind  tossed  them  about.  Then  as 
they  grew  older  they  turned  to  books,  to  learn 
what  other  people  had  found  out  about  flying. 
When  they  read  in  the  summer  of  1896  that 
Otto  Lilienthal,  in  the  effort  to  balance  himself 
in  his  *^ gliding  machine,"  had  fallen  to  his 
death,  they  began  to  study  the  question 
seriously. 

That  matter  of  balancing  was  the  great  diffi- 
culty. Lilienthal,  who  had  given  much  thought 
to  the  mechanics  of  birds '  flight,  had  made  him- 
self wings  like  those  of  a  soaring  hawk  or  buz- 
zard and,  throwing  himself  from  the  summit  of 
a  hill,  had  tested  his  theories  as  he  glided 
through  the  air  of  the  valley.    He  thought  he 

332 


THE  WEIGHT  BROTHERS 

could  keep  his  balance  by  shifting  his  weight  as 
the  wind  shifted,  but  alas !  he  had  not  won  the 
*' wings  of  the  wind.'*  So  down  he  came  to 
earth,  one  more  pitiful  Icarus. 

*^It  is  clearly  not  possible  for  a  bird-man  to 
keep  up  with  the  wind  flaws  by  shifting  his 
weight,''  the  Wrights  agreed. 

These  aspiring  scientists  who  now  set  to  work 
to  solve  the  problem  of  flight  were  partners  in  a 
bicycle  shop  of  Dayton.  *^  Clever  chaps  and 
good  business  men,''  the  neighbors  said. 
^ '  They  might  have  gone  to  college  like  their  two 
older  brothers  and  sister,  but  they  decided  to 
hold  things  together  at  home  for  their  father, 
who  travels  about  a  great  deal."  Their  mother 
was  a  college  woman  and  a  capable  all-round 
home-maker.  She  died  about  the  time  these 
younger  Wrights  were  through  high  school. 
^'They  won't  lose  out,  however,  in  the  long  run, 
by  looking  out  for  their  father  as  well  as  for 
themselves." 

That  bicycle  shop  in  Dayton  soon  began  to 
see  strange  sights.  As  they  pictured  the  prac- 
tical problems  of  ^^ gliders"  the  brothers  made 
models  and  tried  out  experiments.     Lilienthal 

333 


CONQUESTS  OF  mVENTION 

failed  because  his  weight  and  the  distance  he 
might  move  could  not  be  changed  to  meet  the 
disturbing  force  of  changing  air  currents,  which 
steadily  increase  with  size  of  wings  and  rate  of 
wind,  they  decided.  Some  plan  might,  they 
thought,  be  devised  for  big  machines  to  allow 
the  flyer  to  shift  the  slant  of  different  parts  of 
the  wings  and  thus  make  the  wind  a  ^ ^friendly 
enemy '^  by  compelling  it  actively  to  restore  the 
balance  it  had  threatened. 

*'This  shifting  of  the  wing  surfaces  must  be 
an  automatic  winning  of  equilibrium  through 
reflex  action  as  in  the  riding  of  a  bicycle,'^  they 
next  decided. 

A  gliding-machine  of  light  spruce  and  steel 
wire  and  cloth  pinions  was  built,  with  a  rudder 
in  front  to  guide  and  to  counterbalance  shifts 
in  the  center  of  air-pressure.  There  were  two 
planes,  curved  to  imitate  a  bird's  wings,  moved 
by  cords  controlled  by  the  reflex  action  of  the 
bird-man's  body  as  he  lay  stretched  flat  across 
the  middle  of  the  under  wing. 

'^We  will  keep  to  gliders,''  the  Wrights 
vowed.  *^It  's  foolish  to  trust  delicate  and 
costly  machinery  to  wings  that  we  have  not 

334 


THE  WEIGHT  BROTHEES 

learned  to  use.  Besides  it  would  certainly  be 
well  to  discover  what  the  wind  can  do  in  keep- 
ing us  up  before  we  call  in  another  power/' 

Days  were  spent  in  studying  the  mechanism 
of  birds'  flight,  for,  following  the  experiments 
of  Langley,  they  became  convinced  that  soaring 
birds  were  nature's  aeroplanes  with  the  power 
of  balancing  themselves  and  rising  or  falling  on 
currents  of  air. 

Now  for  a  chance  to  put  to  the  test  of  actual 
practice  their  theory  of  automatic  balance ! 

Lilienthal's  method  of  coasting  down  hill  on 
the  air  seemed  a  poor  makeshift.  Perhaps  at 
Kitty  Hawk,  North  Carolina,  on  the  stretch  of 
sand-dunes  between  Albemarle  Sound  and  the 
Atlantic,  they  might  find  winds  of  the  right 
strength  to  provide  a  real  trial.  The  Weather 
Bureau  assured  them  that  the  winds  there  were 
the  steadiest  and  strongest  of  any  that  blew. 
Their  machine  might  be  launched  like  a  kite 
with  men  to  hold  ropes  fastened  to  the  end  of 
each  wing.  There  would  be  time  to  try  out  the 
principles  of  equilibrium  before  the  bird  drifted 
down  at  last  upon  the  dunes. 

But  no  kindly  wind  blew  at  Kitty  Hawk  in 
335 


CO:i^QUESTS  OF  mVEE-TIO:^ 

the  autumn  of  1900  powerfully  enough  to  carry 
the  glider  up  as  planned.  They  flew  it  then  as 
a  kite  without  a  pilot  on  board.  ^  ^  All  we  gained 
by  the  test  was  an  increased  longing  for  further 
experiment, ' '  they  said  afterward.  ^  *  So  far  the 
results  might  be  called  encouraging,  but  we  got, 
of  course,  no  opportunity  for  practice  in  bal- 
ancing. Far  from  learning  to  fly,  we  had  not 
even  tried  our  wings.'' 

The  brothers,  who  had  taken  up  flying  as  a 
sport,  found  their  high  adventure  was  leading 
them  far  into  the  most  fascinating  of  science's 
unexplored  fields.  The  air-pressure  on  surfaces 
of  a  variety  of  shapes  was  measured  and  tested 
at  different  angles,  and  the  results  carefully 
tabulated  and  compared.  This  meant  the  mak- 
ing of  many  difficult  experiments  under  the 
most  baffling  conditions.  There  seemed  little 
enough  in  the  way  of  achievement  to  show  for 
months  of  exacting  work,  yet  they  knew  that 
they  were  proceeding  in  the  only  sure  and  sane 
way. 

In  like  manner  the  experiments  of  1901  and 
1902,  with  larger  machines  to  which  vertical 
tails  were  added  to  assist  in  balancing  seemed  to 

336 


THE  WRIGHT  BROTHEES 

give  small  return  for  great  effort.    The  experi- 
menters summed  up  the  results  in  these  words : 

In  September  and  October,  1902,  nearly  one  thousand 
gliding  flights  were  made,  several  of  which  covered  dis- 
tances of  over  six  hundred  feet.  Some,  made  against  a 
wind  of  thirty-six  miles  an  hour,  gave  proof  of  the  effective- 
ness of  the  devices  for  control.  With  this  machine  in  the 
autumn  of  1903  we  made  a  number  of  flights  in  which  we 
remained  in  the  air  for  over  a  minute  often  soaring  for  a 
considerable  time  in  one  spot  without  any  descent  at  all. 
Little  wonder  that  our  unscientific  assistant  should  think 
the  only  thing  needed  to  keep  it  indefinitely  in  the  air 
would  be  a  coat  of  feathers  to  make  it  light ! 

At  last  the  moment  seemed  to  have  come 
when  they  might  permit  themselves  to  try 
power-flight.  They  had  worked  out  in  actual 
practice  a  system  of  balance  for  calms  and  for 
winds.  A  twelve-horsepower  gas-engine,  weigh- 
ing 240  pounds,  was  placed  on  an  aeroplane 
which  with  the  pilot  weighed  about  745  pounds. 
Then,  on  December  17,  1903,  four  flights  were 
made  at  Kitty  Hawk  against  a  wind  blowing 
twenty  miles  an  hour. 

They  knew  now  that  the  problem  of  equi- 
librium was  solved.  Where  earlier  aviators 
like  Lilienthal  had  tried  to  hold  their  own  in 
the  air  by  shifting  the  position  of  the  body,  the 

337 


COE-QUESTS  OF  mVEE^TIO:^^ 

Wrights  had  worked  out  a  scientific  method  of 
balancing  by  warping  the  wings  of  their  ma- 
chine. If  a  sudden  change  in  their  position  or 
in  the  direction  of  an  air  current  hit  their  plane, 
a  lever  caused  the  ends  of  the  planes  toward  the 
earth  to  warp  down  and  the  opposite  wing  ends 
to  warp  up.  This  meant,  as  they  had  repeat- 
edly demonstrated,  a  definite  gain  in  buoyancy 
for  the  lower  wings  and  a  corresponding  loss  in 
lifting-power  for  the  upper  ones.  Then,  as  the 
machine  righted  itself,  the  lever  was  moved  in 
time  to  prevent  it  canting  to  the  other  side. 
This  method  of  control  through  the  warping  of 
the  ends  of  flexible  planes  was  the  Wrights' 
great  discovery. 

They  were  reaping  the  reward  now  of  their 
patient  study  and  experimentation  and  found 
that  it  was  possible  to  be  on  the  ^^sure  ground'' 
of  dependable  laws  and  established  facts  while 
high  in  the  clouds.  At  last  it  was  possible  for 
man  to  fling  himself  confidently  in  the  ocean  of 
the  air  relying  upon  the  lifting-power  of  arched 
wings  driven  at  a  great  speed  by  a  light  high- 
power  engine.  Thus  it  is  the  velocity  of  the 
aeroplane  that  keeps  it  up.    Some  one  has  said 

338 


Pi 

o 


CO       M 


COIN'QUESTS  OF  INVENTIOTsT 

that  flight  in  the  heavier-than-air  machines  is 
like  skating  rapidly  on  very  thin  ice.  The  air 
doesn't  have  time  to  get  away  from  under- 
neath. *'If  we  go  fast  enough,  the  wind  does 
not  trouble  us,"  said  the  French  aviator  Ved- 
rines.  *^We  trouble  the  wind.  We  outride  the 
fiercest  of  storms." 

The  first  Wright  machine  had  five  hundred 
square  feet  of  wings  and  a  speed  of  forty  miles 
an  hour.  At  the  rate  of  eighty  miles  an  hour 
only  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  square  feet 
of  sail  surface  would  be  needed.  But  if  an 
aviator  should  try  to  drop  speed  to  the  point  of 
ten  miles  an  hour  he  would  need  eight  thousand 
square  feet  of  wing  spread  to  keep  him  in  the 
air.  This  makes  it  plain  why  the  aeroplane  can- 
not go  slowly. 

The  Wrights  were  going  ahead  quietly  with 
experiments  in  circular  flying  over  a  field  near 
Dayton  when  the  world  found  them  out.  Now 
amid  the  shouts  and  plaudits  of  the  crowd,  the 
inventors  who  had  given  men  wings  kept  their 
heads  and  their  mental  balance  as  steadily  as 
they  had  maintained  equilibrium  in  flight. 
*^When  all  the  world  would  have  made  them 

340 


THE  WEIGHT  BROTHERS 

strut  their  hour  as  popular  heroes/^  one  writer 
observed,  *'the  Wrights  refused  and  kept  a 
serene  and  even  course.  For  instance,  all  of- 
ficial Washington  used  to  go  out  to  watch  Or- 
ville  Wright's  flights  at  Fort  Myer,  and  the 
newspaper  men  became  exasperated  because  he 
would  not  take  advantage  of  so  favorable  an 
opportunity  to  do  something  dramatic/' 

While  in  Europe  they  were  everywhere  ap- 
plauded and  feted.  Kings  and  popular  heroes 
vied  with  one  another  in  doing  them  honor. 
But  everywhere  people  were  amazed  that  they 
never  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  do  something 
spectacular, — to  cut  a  dash  while  the  nations 
stood  at  attention. 

^^Will  you  not  try  for  the  prize  offered  the 
first  aviator  to  cross  the  English  Channel  1" 
Wilbur  Wright  was  asked. 

''^No,"  he  replied;  ^'it  would  be  risky  to  no 
purpose.  It  would  not  prove  anything  more 
than  a  journey  overland." 

While  the  Wrights  went  on  making  experi- 
ments in  their  aircraft  and  giving  lessons  in 
flight  other  bird-men  rose  to  fame.  In  France, 
particularly,  Louis  Bleriot  and  the  Seguins  led 

341 


CONQUESTS  OF  mVENTIOlN' 

the  advance  in  aeroplane-construction.  The 
French  developed  the  monoplane  type  of  flying- 
machine  and  also  devised  the  undercarriage  of 
wheels  which  made  ascent  possible  from  the 
ground  instead  of  from  a  specially  prepared 
track. 

In  the  Great  War  the  aeroplanes  played  a 
leading  part.  They  were  *^the  eyes  of  the 
army/^  doing  scout  duty  and  directing  the 
range  of  batteries.  At  sea  they  did  the  most 
effective  patrol  and  convoy  work.  No  ship  was 
ever  attacked  by  U-boats  while  under  the  escort 
of  aeroplanes.  Special  planes  were  developed 
with  machine-guns  capable  of  firing  through  the 
propeller  without  harming  it  to  bring  down 
enemy  air-craft.  Many  machines  were  equipped 
with  automatic  cameras  for  map-making  and 
with  radio  apparatus  and  special  devices  for 
sighting  and  bomb-dropping.  The  air  service, 
then,  plays  a  most  important  part  in  the  de- 
fense of  our  country. 

In  May,  1918,  an  air  line  between  Washing- 
ton and  New  York  was  instituted  for  the  carry- 
ing of  mail,  about  two  hours  and  a  half  being 
allowed  for  the  trip.     In  crossing  mountains 

342 


THE  WRIGHT  BROTHERS 

and  deserts  and  in  maintaining  communication 
with  remote  corners  of  the  country  as  when 
men  are  on  scout  duty  over  our  timber  lands 
to  detect  and  report  forest  fires,  the  aeroplane 
is  proving  indispensable. 

Surely,  the  greatest  and  the  most  dramatic 
victory  for  mankind  in  the  early  years  of  the 
twentieth  century  was  the  conquest  of  the  air. 


343 


OLD  SIGNALS  AND  NEW 


Over  slim  wires,  buried  in  conduits  below  the  trampled 
street,  or  high  strung,  swinging  in  the  rising  wind,  the  voices 
of  a  thousand  people  told  their  thousand  messages  to  wait- 
ing ears.  A  passing  thought,  perhaps,  that  you  would  have 
me  hear;  with  a  single  movement  you  lift  the  transmitter 
from  the  hook  beside  you;  white  flashes  a  tiny  lamp  on  a 
black  panel;  a  girl's  hand  sweeps  across  the  board  and 
plugs  in  the  connection.  Space,  useless,  is  swept  aside; 
though  actual  miles  may  intervene  I  am  suddenly  beside 

you. 

Joseph  Husband  :  America  at  Work. 


OLD  SIGNALS  AND  NEW 

THE  means  that  early  peoples  took  of  send- 
ing messages  include  many  ingenious  de- 
vices. The  American  Indians  used  to  signal 
with  smoke-pu:ffs  made  by  placing  a  blanket 
over  a  fire  and  then  quickly  withdrawing  it,  a 
number  of  such  puffs  following  in  quick  succes- 
sion being  sent  as  a  warning  of  an  enemy's  ap- 
proach. One  smoke-puff  was  used  to  attract 
attention;  two  told  that  the  sender  would  camp 
near  by;  and  three  were  an  appeal  for  help. 
At  night,  the  Indians  made  use  of  fire  arrows ; 
one  meant  the  approach  of  an  enemy,  two 
flashed  the  news  of  danger,  and  three  meant 
great  danger. 

We  know  that  the  Egyptians  used  flashes  of 
light  from  mirrors  as  prearranged  signals,  and 
tradition  has  it  that  the  rays  reflected  from  the 
gleaming  shields  of  the  heroes  of  Marathon 
were  used  to  flash  news  of  the  battle.    Here  we 

347 


co:NrQUESTS  or  mvE:NTio:N' 

have  in  germ  the  heliograph  which  to-day  sends 
any  message  by  the  Morse  code  of  long  and 
short  gleams. 

At  the  Vatican  may  be  seen  a  drawing  of  an 
instrument  used  in  the  time  of  Alexander  the 


A  Signal   Tower 

Great  for  voice-signaling,  a  curious  sort  of 
megaphone  or  speaking  trumpet  that  was  said 
to  have  achieved  a  mighty  shout  that  could  be 
heard  several  miles  away.  In  some  places  in 
France  there  are  still  to  be  seen  ruins  of  watch- 
towers  built  by  the  Eomans  for  signaling- 
stations.    So  it  is  that  in  a  variety  of  ways  peo- 

348 


OLD  SIGNALS  AND  NEW 

pie  in  all  ages  have  sought  to  communicate  with 
each  other  in  time  of  need. 

The  first  real  conquest  of  invention  in  the 
sending  of  messages  was  brought  about  by  the 
telegraph  and  by  the  Morse  code.  This  code  in- 
troduced a  system  capable  of  application  where 
the  electric  telegraph  is  not  available.  A  steam- 
boat whistle  may,  for  instance,  give  the  dots  and 
dashes,  as  does  the  flashing  light  of  the  helio- 
graph. 

With  the  telephone  which  carries  the  com- 
plex sound-waves  of  the  human  voice  we  seem 
to  be  in  the  realm  of  magic.  Hardly  more  won- 
derful was  the  discovery  that  wires  were  not 
necessary  to  conduct  the  electric  waves  through 
space.  Men  might  now  speak  together  any- 
where. 

Lo,  Science  waves  her  hand,  and  silently 

A  magic  web  is  spun  from  sea  to  sea. 
The  States  crowd  close  together,  as  at  night 

A  family  clusters  round  the  fireside's  light. 
The  fair-haired  goddess  of  the  Golden  Gate 

Wafts  welcome  to  the  East's  remotest  State, 
And,  standing  on  the  far  Pacific  shore, 

Hears  the  Atlantic's  mighty  waters  roar. 


349 


THE  FATHER  OF  THE  TELEGRAPH 

Samuel  F.  B.  Mokse  (1791-1892) 

A  YEAR  after  the  death  of  Benjamin 
Franklin— on  April  27,  1791— there  was 
born  in  Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  about  a 
mile  from  the  birthplace  of  the  great  American 
who  with  his  kite  and  key  caught  electricity 
from  the  clouds,  the  American  inventor  who 
learned  to  use  that  mysterious  force  in  flashing 
with  the  quickness  of  thought  the  messages  of 
people  over  wires.  Samuel  Finley  Breese 
Morse,  the  boy  was  called — the  **  Samuel  Fin- 
ley''  for  his  mother's  grandfather  who  had  been 
a  president  of  Princeton  College.  His  mother's 
name,  Elizabeth  Ann  Breese,  seemed  to  express 
the  wonderful  *^ sweetness  and  light"  of  her 
nature,  at  once  strong  and  gentle.  Finley,  the 
boy  was  called,  except  when  at  school  his  mates 
gave  him  the  nickname  *  ^  Geography, "  partly 

350 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

because  his  father  was  the  author  of  a  geog- 
raphy, and  partly  because  the  little  chap  of 
eight  seemed  to  have  more  things  to  tell  about 
the  wonders  of  the  world  than  seemed  quite 
natural  to  the  other  boys  at  Phillips  Andover 
Academy. 

But  it  was  soon  seen  that  young  Finley  cared 
more  for  making  pictures  than  for  maps.  When 
he  entered  Yale,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  he  helped 
to  pay  his  own  way  by  making  silhouettes  and 
miniatures.  In  his  last  year  at  college  Finley 
wrote  home  a  penitent  letter  confessing  to  a 
^'buttery  biir'  of  forty-three  dollars,  but  added 
that  the  butler  was  willing  that  he  should  take 
his  likeness  in  payment  of  seven  dollars  of  the 
amount ;  and  that  he  had  several  orders  beside 
at  five  dollars  each.  *  *  My  price  for  profiles  is 
one  dollar,  and  everybody  is  ready  to  engage 
me  at  that  price,"  he  concluded. 

In  another  letter,  sending  home  an  itemized 
expense  account  for  the  term  of  fifteen  dollars 
(not  including  tuition,  board,  washing,  and 
wood  bills),  he  made  excuse  for  extravagance 
in  a  way  that  showed  he  had  inherited  the  con- 

351 


coi^QUESTS  OF  i:n^ventio:n' 

science   of  Ms   strict  Puritan   ancestors.     He 
writes : 

I  find  it  impossible  to  live  in  college  withont  spending 
money.  At  one  time  a  letter  is  to  be  paid  for,  then  comes 
up  a  great  tax  from  the  class  or  society.  .  .  .  When  I  have 
it  is  with  the  greatest  pain  that  I  part  with  it.  I  think 
money  in  my  hand  I  feel  as  though  I  had  stolen  it,  and 
every  minute  I  shall  receive  a  letter  from  home  blaming 
me  for  not  being  economical,  and  thus  I  am  kept  in  dis- 
tress all  the  time. 

The  items  of  that  bill  are  of  interest  as  throw- 
ing light  on  the  social  background  of  a  Yale 
student  in  1807,  as  well  as  giving  a  side-light  on 
the  character  of  Finley  Morse  at  this  time : 

Postage  $2.05 

Oil 50 

Taxes,  fines,  etc 3.00 

Oysters    50 

Washbowl 37% 

Skillet 33 

Ax,  $1.33;  Catalogues,  .12 1.45 

Powder  and  shot 1-12% 

Cakes   1.75 

Wine  (Thanksgiving  Day  ) 20 

Toll  on  bridge 15 

Grinding  ax .08 

Museum    25 

Poor  Man 14 

Carriage  for  trunk 1.00 

352 


Courtesy  of  The  Mentor 


Samuel  F.  B.  Morse 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

Pitcher    41 

Sharpening  skates 37^2 

Circulating  library 25 

Post   papers    57 

Lent  never  to  be  returned .25 

Paid  for  cutting  wood .25 


$15,001/2 


It  was  doubtless  a  real  disappointment  to  the 
father,  who  hoped  that  his  eldest  son  would 
enter  one  of  the  ^'learned  professions"  for 
which  his  college  career  was  preparing  him,  to 
hear  that  all  Finley's  inclination  was  for  paint- 
ing. In  a  letter  written  to  his  father  in  July, 
1810,  he  said: 

I  am  now  released  from  college  and  am  attending  to 
painting.  ...  As  to  my  choice  of  a  profession,  I  still 
think  that  I  was  made  for  a  painter,  and  I  would  be  obliged 
to  you  to  make  such  arrangement  with  Mr.  Allston  for  my 
studying  with  him  as  you  shall  think  expedient.  I  should 
desire  to  study  with  him  during  the  winter,  and  as  he 
expects  to  return  to  England  in  the  spring,  I  should  admire 
to  be  able  to  go  with  him. 

Indeed,  it  was  soon  evident  to  the  young 
man's  friends  that  all  his  heart  was  in  his 
painting.  Though  he  dutifully  met  his  father's 
plans  for  him  and  worked  for  a  while  in  a  book- 

353 


COIsTQUESTS  OF  mVEl^TION 

shop,  his  evenings  were  spent  in  a  room  over 
the  kitchen  which  he  had  turned  into  a  studio. 
There  he  worked  ahead  cheerfully,  seizing  as 
many  hours  as  possible  for  painting  out  of 
doors. 

^*Your  landscape  shows  signs  of  being  a 
credit  to  you,"  said  his  father  one  day,  looking 
from  the  picture  to  his  son  thoughtfully. 

*^  Yes,"  replied  Finley,  ^Hhey  say  it  is  proper 
handsome  and  they  want  me  to  believe  it  is  so ; 
but  I  shan't  yet  a  while." 

**Now,  son,"  said  the  father  with  serious 
conviction,  **you  make  me  sure  that  you  are 
entering  upon  this  calling  soberly  and  with  the 
determination  to  do  real  work.  You  may  give 
up  the  book-shop  and  go  forward  in  your  chosen 
way,  with  my  blessing." 

Jedidiah  Morse  was  a  man  of  consequence, 
who  numbered  among  his  acquaintance  men  of 
note  in  England  as  well  as  in  America.  He  was, 
therefore,  able  to  give — with  his  blessing — in- 
troductions that  were  of  real  service  to  the 
aspiring  student.    In  one  such  letter  he  wrote : 

In  this  country,  young  in  the  arts,  there  are  few  means 
of  improvement.    These  are  to  be  found  in  their  perfection 

354 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

only  in  older  countries  and  in  none,  perhaps,  greater  than 
in  yours.  In  compliance,  therefore,  with  my  son's  earnest 
wishes  and  those  of  his  friend  and  patron,  Mr.  Allston 
(with  whom  he  goes  to  London),  we  have  consented  to  make 
the  sacrifice  of  feeling  (not  a  small  one),  and  a  pecuniary 
exertion  to  the  utmost  of  our  ability  for  the  purpose  of 
placing  him  under  the  best  advantage  of  becoming  eminent 
in  his  profession. 

Full  of  enthusiasm  for  Ms  work,  the  young 
American  sought  an  idea  worthy  of  his  mettle. 
^^I  shall  try  my  strength  on  a  Hercules!"  he 
declared.  The  mighty  hero  of  myth  was  indeed 
a  subject  to  call  out  the  powers  of  the  strongest. 
When  Morse  found  a  model  was  necessary,  he 
set  to  work  to  mould  one  in  clay. 

West  was  greatly  impressed  by  this  attempt 
at  sculpture.  **You  have  the  sense  of  form,'' 
he  said  approvingly.  ^^I  always  said  that  a 
painter  should  be  able  to  turn  sculptor  at  need. 
His  work  then  has  grasp.  You  might  send  this 
to  the  exhibition ;  it  can  do  no  harm. ' ' 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  figure  won  a  gold 
medal.  But  when  it  came  to  the  painting,  that 
was  another  story.  With  a  heart  beating  high 
in  eager  anticipation  Morse  begged  West  to 
come  and  judge. 

355 


CONQUESTS  OF  HSTVENTION^ 

*^So  far,  so  good,"  said  the  master,  looking, 
unmoved,  at  the  canvas.    *  ^  Go  on  and  finish  it. ' ' 

*^But — ^but  it  is  finished,"  stammered  Morse, 
in  amazement. 

^*Why,  surely  not:  look  here  now — and 
here ! ' '  said  West  calmly,  indicating  with  swift 
strokes  the  points  he  found  wanting. 

Once  more  the  disciple  set  to  work  and  again 
he  summoned  the  master,  longing  for  a  word  of 
approval.  **Well,"  said  West  expressively, 
*'well — ^go  on  and  finish  it!" 

'^But,"  said  Morse,  *^but— " 

Yet  once  more  he  saw  with  the  master's  eyes, 
and  once  again  he  set  to  work. 

At  last  the  day  came  when  West  was  con- 
vinced that  the  student  had  really  done  his 
utmost. 

**Now,"  he  said,  *^you  may  turn  to  another 
subject.  Hercules  killed  serpents  in  his  cradle, 
remember.  You  have  won  something  of  the 
strength  of  Hercules  in  this  first  study  by 
strangling  self-satisfaction  and  discourage- 
ment. ' ' 

It  is  necessary  to  pass  over  with  a  word  the 
next    three    years.      Morse    showed    growing 

356 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

powers  and  also  a  growing  ambition.  He 
longed  to  paint  great  pictures, — to  make  the 
history  of  the  past  live  in  color  and  to  place  an 
American  name  among  artists  of  the  first  rank. 

**My  country  has  the  most  prominent  place 
in  my  thoughts, ' '  he  wrote  home  in  1814.  ' '  How 
shall  I  raise  her  name.  .  .  .  They  say  she  has 
produced  no  men  of  genius.  It  is  this  more 
than  anything  (aside  from  painting)  that  in- 
spires me  with  a  desire  to  excel  in  my  art.  I 
should  like  to  be  the  greatest  painter  purely  out 
of  revenge.'' 

So  it  was  that  Finley  Morse  felt  the 
'^growing-pains''  of  a  young  country  in  addi- 
tion to  the  pangs  of  ambitious  youth.  It  was, 
therefore,  a  double  disappointment  when  finan- 
cial reverses  made  it  impossible  for  his  father 
to  assist  him  further  with  his  study. 

*  *  If  I  had  had  no  higher  thoughts  than  being 
a  first-rate  portrait-painter  I  would  have  chosen 
a  far  different  profession,"  he  exclaimed. 
''And  now  when  I  long  not  only  for  my  own 
sake  but  for  America  to  put  her  name  with  the 
masters  of  all  time — with  Rafael,  Michael  An- 

357 


COJSTQUESTS  OF  I^N'VENTIOI^ 

gelo,  and  Titian — I  must  consider  how  at  once 
to  turn  my  work  into  money. ' ' 

In  the  years  that  followed,  he  found  that  with 
all  he  could  do  as  a  painter  it  was  not  easy  to 
turn  his  work  into  money  enough  to  meet  the 
needs  of  his  family.  He  painted  many  port- 
raits,— among  others  those  of  President  Mon- 
roe, Henry  Clay,  and  DeWitt  Clinton  in  the 
Metropolitan  gallery.  New  York,  and  the  full- 
length  portrait  of  Lafayette  in  the  New  York 
City  Hall. 

*^You  make  as  many  good  friends  as  you  do 
good  pictures,''  a  fellow  artist  once  said;  for 
Morse's  personal  gifts  won  recognition  no  less 
than  his  claims  to  rank  as  a  painter.  General 
Lafayette  became,  among  others,  a  real  friend. 

^^This  is  Mr.  Morse,  the  painter,  the  son  of 
the  geographer ;  he  has  come  to  Washington  to 
take  the  topography  of  my  face,"  said  the 
general,  in  introducing  the  artist  to  his  son  at 
a  levee  which  President  Monroe  gave  in  honor 
of  his  successor,  John  Quincy  Adams.  The  ac- 
quaintance with  Lafayette,  begun  with  the  sit- 
tings for  his  portrait,  ripened  into  a  lifelong 
friendship. 

358 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

Though  the  first  forty  years  of  Morse's  long 
life  (he  lived  to  be  eighty-one)  were  devoted  to 
painting,  he  gave  evidence  during  that  time  of 
practical  constructive  ability.  Dreaming  of 
winning  enough  money  by  a  sudden  happy 
stroke  to  make  himself  independent  of  the  ups 
and  downs  of  an  artist's  fortune,  he  invented  a 
marble-carving  machine  which  was  capable  of 
repeating  in  marble  ^'perfect  copies  of  any 
model.''  But  alas  for  his  hopes!  The  patent 
he  applied  for  was  refused  as  it  would  have  been 
an  infringement  upon  a  machine  patented  sev- 
eral years  before.  Somebody  had  reached  that 
goal  ahead  of  him. 

Heartily  know 

When  the  half-gods  go 

The  gods  arrive — 

sings  the  poet.  As  we  look  back  over  the  years 
of  struggle  of  any  great  man  we  see  that  many 
^^  half -gods"  had  to  go  in  order  to  leave  the 
way  open  for  the  real  life-work.  So  it  was  with 
Morse.  He  had  to  push  on  past  many  disap- 
pointments which  served  to  spur  him  to  new 

359 


COISTQUESTS  OF  IKVENTIOi^ 

effort  and  saved  him  from  the  dullness  of  rou- 
tine.   He  was  a  seeker,  always. 

Years  of  struggle  passed, — ^years  which  he 
hoped  might  pave  the  way  for  the  real  work  of 
which  he  dreamed.  Great  sorrow  came  to  him. 
His  young  wife,  who  had  brought  the  moonlight 
and  starlight  of  ideal  beauty  and  the  sunshine 
of  cheer  and  wholesome  living  into  all  his  days, 
was  taken  from  him.  Within  a  few  months 
afterward  he  lost  his  dearly  loved  father  and 
mother  also. 

^'Now  when  I  paint  the  pictures  of  America 
for  America,  there  will  be  no  one  to  rejoice  with 
me  as  they  would  have  done,"  he  mourned, 
when  the  opportunity  for  which  he  had  longed, 
to  go  to  Italy,  came  at  last. 

Several  years  went  by  quickly  in  Italy  and 
France.  Given  the  chance,  now  he  would  paint 
America's  story — Columbus  standing  at  the 
Santa  Maria's  prow,  sailing  past  fear  and  peril 
on  his  way  to  India ;  or  Columbus  with  the  New 
World  at  his  feet.  He  hoped  to  be  one  of  the 
artists  selected  to  paint  the  large  panel  pictures 
for  the  rotunda  of  the  Capitol  at  Washington. 
Modestly  he  put  forward  his  claim.    It  seemed 

360 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

that  all  his  life  had  been  a  preparation  for  this. 
All  of  his  fellow  artists  rallied  around  him; 
there  might  be  question  in  regard  to  others,  but 
there  could  be  no  doubt  that  Morse  should  be 
one  of  those  chosen. 

Then,  a  miscliief !  John  Quincy  Adams  (now 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Eepresentatives)  was 
on  the  congressional  committee  charged  with  the 
matter  of  the  rotunda  pictures.  He  introduced 
a  resolution  recommending  that  European  ar- 
tists be  considered  as  well  as  Americans,  saying 
that  in  his  judgment  America  could  not  produce 
painters  able  to  cope  with  the  great  task  in 
hand.  This  called  forth  a  storm  of  indignant 
protest.  One  letter  in  particular  which  ap- 
peared in  a  leading  New  York  paper  voiced  the 
feelings  of  the  American  painters. 

*^I  recognize  the  hand  of  Morse,  there,"  said 
Mr.  Adams,  to  the  other  members  of  the  Com- 
mittee. *'He  knows  how  to  lay  it  on  with  pen 
as  well  as  with  brush.  Besides,  he  alone  has 
had  the  experience  both  here  and  abroad  which 
lies  back  of  these  paragraphs." 

The  astute  Mr.  Adams  learned  later  that 
Morse  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  offending 

361 


CO^STQUESTS  OF  mVEE-TION 

article,  but  that  was  after  other  painters  had 
been  selected  for  the  rotunda  pictures.  James 
Fenimore  Cooper  was  the  writer  whose  ill- 
timed  championship  cost  Finley  Morse  the  op- 
portunity for  which  he  longed  above  all  else. 

^^That  was,"  said  Morse,  *Hhe  second  great 
grief  of  my  life.  I  seemed  to  lose  all  spirit  in 
the  work  that  had  before  been  meat  and  drink 
to  me. ' ' 

But  Fate  was  standing  in  the  shadow  ready 
to  point  the  way  to  his  real  life-work.  He  had 
indeed  begun  to  work  on  his  great  invention  at 
this  time,  but  if  he  had  been  given  his  desire  in 
the  matter  of  the  pictures  that  would  have  had 
first  place  in  his  thought.  * '  When  the  half -gods 
go  the  gods  arrive ! " 

It  was  on  the  packet  ship  Sully,  when  Morse 
was  returning  to  America  after  his  years  of 
study  in  France  and  Italy,  that  the  idea  of  the 
telegraph  was  bom.  Like  Minerva  springing 
full-armed  from  the  forehead  of  Jove,  it  seemed 
to  leap  in  a  moment  clear  and  complete  from  the 
brain  of  the  inventor.  The  passengers  were  sit- 
ting about  the  lunch-table  listening  to  a  Dr. 
Jackson  of  Boston  tell  about  some  interesting 

362 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

experiments  of  European  scientists  in  elec- 
tricity and  magnetism. 

^'The  electric  current  passes  instantaneously 
over  wire  of  any  length,"  he  declared  impres- 
sively. "Its  presence  at  any  point  on  the  line 
may  be  demonstrated  by  breaking  the  current 
there. ' ' 

The  people  listened,  marveling  and  question- 
ing idly,  when  Morse  exclaimed :  "Don't  any  of 
you  see  what  that  may  mean,  practically,  to  all 
of  us,  to  everybody  f  If  the  presence  of  the 
electric  current  can  be  made  visible  in  any  part 
of  the  circuit,  I  see  no  reason  why  messages 
may  not  be  transmitted  instantaneously  by 
electricity. ' ' 

Still  nobody  seemed  particularly  moved.  It 
was  an  interesting  theory,  of  course,  but  no  one 
imagined  it  actually  carried  over  into  the  world 
of  practical  affairs.  Could  it  be  conceived  that 
an  artist  talking  to  a  group  of  chance  com- 
panions about  a  dinner-table  had  pictured 
something  that  was  destined  to  change  the  cur- 
rent of  the  world's  history!  Yet  at  that  mo- 
ment a  new  day  for  civilization  was  born, — the 
day  when  electricity,  which  had  up  to  this  time 

363 


CONQUESTS  OF  IISrVENTIO:^' 

been  but  the  plaything  of  scientists,  should 
become  the  servant  of  mankind. 

Morse  went  out  and  paced  the  deck.  His 
brain  was  afire  with  the  great  idea.  The  sudden 
flash  of  inspiration  had  not  flickered  and  died 
down,  but  his  inventive  mind  continued  at  white 
heat,  picturing,  picturing.  Just  how  was  the 
message  to  be  sent  over  wire!  A  system  of 
signals,  a  code  would  be  needed.  Nothing  could 
be  more  simple  than  points  and  lines  (dots  and 
dashes)  which,  together  with  spaces,  might  indi- 
cate words  or  letters.  Out  came  the  artist's 
sketch-book  and  the  general  plan  of  the  system 
known  to-day  as  the  '^ Morse  Code"  was  jotted 
down.  As  if  he  feared  that  his  idea  would  melt 
away  like  a  dream  with  the  coming  of  a  new 
day,  the  inventor  carefully  sketched  in  the  es- 
sential parts  of  the  apparatus  as  he  saw  it  in 
his  mind's  eyes — an  electromagnet  with  a  rod 
attached,  so  acted  upon  by  the  strokes  or  shocks 
of  the  galvanic  current  as  to  move  up  and  down 
and  with  each  movement  to  mark  with  a  lever- 
pen  dots  and  dashes  on  a  strip  of  paper  passed 
along  by  an  independent  clockwork  device. 

The  idea  of  using  the  electric  current  to  send 
364 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

messages  had  occurred  to  scientists  in  England, 
France,  and  Germany.  In  America,  too,  Joseph 
Henry  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  was  ex- 
perimenting along  this  line,  but  it  remained  for 
Morse,  the  artist,  who  for  forty-one  years  had 


The  Morse  Telegraph 

given  all  his  thought  to  the  making  of  pictures, 
to  cut  the  Gordian  knot  of  practical  difficulties 
that  stood  between  laboratory  experiment  and 
commercial  success,  and  give  the  world  a 
simple,  paying  electric  telegraph. 

It  was  the  beautiful  simplicity  of  Morse's 
idea  that  marked  it  out  for  success.    While  men 

365 


COE^QUESTS  OF  I]^YE]^TI0:N' 

who  knew  far  more  about  science  than  he  did 
were  led  off  into  perplexing  by-paths,  he  saw 
clearly  the  essential  points  and  went  straight  to 
the  goal. 

We  have  said  that  the  great  idea  came  to  the 
inventor  on  his  voyage  to  America  in  October, 
1832.  But  that  idea  could  not  have  taken  root 
in  his  mind  if  there  had  not  already  been  some 
fertile  ground  to  seize  upon  the  seed  and  give 
it  a  fair  chance.  Morse  had  been  vitally  in- 
terested in  the  problems  of  electricity  since  he 
was  a  student  at  Yale,  when  in  a  natural- 
philosophy  course  given  by  Professor  Day, 
some  lectures  illustrated  by  experiments  with 
electricity  had  so  impressed  the  young  man  that 
he  wrote  an  enthusiastic  account  of  them  in  his 
letters  home.  One  principle  in  particular  fas- 
cinated him,  and  even  the  words  of  the  text 
echoed  in  his  memory  more  than  a  score  of  years 
after  that  memorable  day  on  the  Sully.  *^If 
the  electric  current  be  interrupted  at  any  place 
the  fluid  will  become  visible,  and  when  it  passes 
it  will  leave  an  impression  upon  any  intermedi- 
ate body."  Once  in  his  last  years,  when  Morse 
was  passing  in  review  the  story  of  his  struggle 

366 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

and  triumpli,  he  wrote:  ^'The  fact  that  the 
presence  of  electricity  can  be  made  visible  in 
any  desired  part  of  the  circuit  was  the  crnde 
seed  which  took  root  in  my  mind  and  grew  into 
form,  and  ripened  into  the  invention  of  the 
telegraph. ' ' 

During  the  years  when  Morse's  work  as  an 
artist  kept  him  in  New  York,  he  had  followed 
up  the  interest  in  electricity  aroused  in  his  col- 
lege days,  by  attending  lectures  given  by  Pro- 
fessor Dana  of  Columbia  University.  He  was 
therefore,  at  the  time  he  began  work  on  his 
invention,  and  intelligent  amateur  with  a  fair 
idea  of  what  had  been  done  in  the  field  of  elec- 
tricity. He  was  well  acquainted  with  the  basic 
principles  involved  in  his  work.  Let  us  see  what 
these  foundation  principles  were: 

(1)  He  knew  that  a  coil  of  wire  in  the  shape 
of  a  horseshoe  which  could  be  magnetised  by  the 
passage  of  the  galvanic  current  would  lose  its 
magnetism  when  the  current  was  suspended. 

(2)  He  knew  that  this  electromagnet  could 
be  made  to  lift  and  drop  masses  of  iron  of 
considerable  weight. 

367 


COE^QUESTS  OF  IlSTYEl^TIOI^ 

(3)  He  knew  that  the  galvanic  current  could 
be  transmitted  through  wires  of  great  length. 

With  these  three  principles  clearly  in  mind, 
Morse  went  a  step  farther,  holding  that  the 
opening  and  closing  of  the  current  could  be 
made  through  an  electromagnet  to  give  a  defi- 
nite up  and  down  motion  to  a  lever-pen.  This 
pen,  alternately  dropping  and  rising  at  regu- 
lated intervals  from  a  tape  of  paper,  should 
cause  the  current  not  only  to  signal  but  also  to 
record  the  message. 

The  days  of  the  long  voyage  were  not  tedious 
to  Morse,  for  he  was  working  over  his  plans  for 
the  telegraph,  trying  to  decide  upon  the  best 
device  for  making  an  up-and-down  motion  sig- 
nal an  intelligible  message  at  one  end  of  the 
wire  and  at  the  same  time  record  it  satisfac- 
torily at  the  other.  The  sketches  in  his  book 
indicated  possible  ways  of  arranging  magnets 
and  levers. 

**Well,  Captain,''  he  said,  as  they  sailed  into 
New  York  harbor,  ^^  should  you  hear  of  the  tele- 
graph one  of  these  days  as  the  wonder  of  the 

368 


Morse's  Original  Telegraph  Instrument  now  in  the  National  Museum, 
Washington,  D.  C. 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MOESE 

world,  remember  that  the  discovery  was  made 
on  board  the  good  ship  Sully/' 

At  the  landing  Morse  had  hardly  greeted  his 
brothers,  who  were  on  hand  to  celebrate  his  re- 
turn to  America,  before  he  said,  tapping  his 
note-book,  ^^I  have  something  wonderful  to 
show  you!^' 

^^A  brand-new  idea  just  imported  from  Eu- 
rope for  the  great  American  picture  T'  said  his 
brother  Eichard,  banteringly. 

^^It  is  an  invention,  a  really  great  invention, 
and  I  have  the  whole  plan  as  plain  as  A,  B,  C, 
on  a  couple  of  sheets  in  this  note-book, ''  said 
Morse.  And  he  began  at  once  to  lay  the  wires 
of  his  scheme  between  his  brothers  and  himself. 

*^Do  you  see?"  he  said,  eagerly  showing  the 
signals  of  his  code.  ^^The  strokes  at  my  end 
that  open  and  close  the  current  make  the  lines 
and  points  at  your  end. ' ' 

Some  one  has  said  that  aspiration  and  inspi- 
ration must  be  reinforced  by  perspiration  be- 
fore anything  worth  while  is  accomplished  any- 
where. The  greatest  genius  is  the  one  who  re- 
alizes that  hard  work  is  the  secret  of  success. 
If  Morse  had  not  had  genius  of  this  sort  he 

369 


CONQUESTS  OF  i:NrYE]srTio:t^ 

might  have  tossed  his  idea  and  his  plans  over- 
board and  returned  calmly  to  his  work  as  a 
painter  for  all  that  would  have  come  of  his 
scheme.  As  it  was,  he  decided  to  paint  with  a 
new  purpose, — to  gain  time  and  money  for  the 
great  idea.  It  proved,  of  course,  much  easier 
to  plan  and  to  work  out  plans  on  paper  than  to 
construct  a  model.  There  were  no  materials 
ready  at  hand.  Everything  had  to  be  contrived 
and  money  was  scarce. 

Morse's  first  instrument  was  a  monument  to 
the  inventor's  ingenuity  and  patient  industry. 
Here  is  a  description  of  it  in  his  own  words : 

My  first  instrument  was  made  up  of  an  old  picture  or 
canvas  frame  fastened  to  a  table;  the  wheels  of  an  old 
wooden  clock,  moved  by  a  weight  to  carry  the  paper  for- 
ward; three  wooden  drums,  upon  one  of  which  the  paper 
was  wound  and  cast  over  the  other  two ;  a  wooden  pendulum 
suspended  to  the  top  piece  of  the  picture  or  stretching 
frame  and  vibrating  across  the  paper  as  it  passed  over  the 
center  wooden  drum;  a  pencil  at  the  lower  end  of  the 
pendulum  in  contact  with  the  paper;  an  electro-magnet 
fastened  to  a  shelf  across  the  picture  or  stretching  frame, 
opposite  to  an  armature  made  fast  to  the  pendulum;  a  tight 
rule  and  type  for  breaking  the  circuit,  resting  on  an  endless 
band,  composed  of  carpet  binding  which  passed  over  two 
wooden  rollers  moved  by  a  wooden  crank. 

Up   to  the   autumn   of  1837  my  telegraphic  apparatus 

370 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

existed  in  so  crude  a  form  that  I  felt  a  reluctance  to  have 
it  seen.  My  means  were  very  limited  and  I  had  no  wish 
to  expose  to  ridicule  so  many  hours  of  laborious  thought. 
I  had  for  many  months  lodged  and  eaten  in  my  studio, 
procuring  my  food  in  small  quantities  from  some  grocery 
and  preparing  it  myself.  To  conceal  from  my  friends  the 
stinted  manner  in  which  I  lived,  I  was  in  the  habit  of 
bringing  my  food  to  my  room  in  the  evenings,  and  this 
was  my  mode  of  life  for  many  years. 

There  were  days  when  there  was  no  danger  of 
his  pride  suffering  through  his  friends'  dis- 
covering his  furtive  excursions  for  food,  be- 
cause not  only  was  the  cupboard  bare  but  there 
was  no  money  ahead  for  the  next  meal.  One 
day  when  a  pupil  failed  to  bring  the  expected 
fee  for  lessons,  the  master  was  in  such  sore 
straits  that  he  said,  * '  Well,  my  boy,  how  are  we 
off  for  money  to-day  1 ' ' 

'^Why,  sir,"  replied  the  youth,  *^I  am  sorry 
that  I  have  not  received  the  money  I  expected. 
But  it  will  surely  be  here  next  week.'' 

*^Next  week  I  may  be  dead,"  was  the  start- 
ling remark  of  the  painter. 

^^Dead!"  echoed  the  student,  aghast. 

*'Yes,  dead  of  starvation." 

*^  Would  ten  dollars  be  of  service?"  asked  the 
student,  emptying  his  pocket  hastily. 

371 


C0:N^QUESTS  of  I]N"YE]SrTION^ 

^  ^  Ten  dollars  would  save  my  life ;  it  would  at 
least  serve  that  turn.'^  As  the  pupil  paid  the 
money  Morse  remarked,  ^^This  will  mean  my 
first  meal  in  twenty- four  hours.'' 

One  day,  as  Morse  was  exhibiting  his  model 
to  Professor  Gale  in  his  chemistry  laboratory  at 
the  University  of  the  City  of  New  York,  a  young 
man  who  chanced  in  seemed  struck  by  the 
apparatus  with  its  maze  of  wires  suspended  in 
the  room  from  one  end  to  the  other,  back  and 
forth  many  times,  making  a  length  of  several 
hundred  feet  in  all.  He  watched  in  silence  for 
a  long  time;  then  he  approached  the  inventor. 

'^Are  you  going  to  try  it  out  on  a  larger  scale, 
with  a  more  extended  line  of  conductors!"  he 
asked. 

*^As  soon  as  I  can  command  the  necessary 
means,"  was  the  reply. 

^'If,"  said  the  young  man,  ^^I  can  furnish  the 
financial  backing,  will  you  give  me  a  fair  share 
in  the  enterprise  1 ' ' 

A  satisfactory  agreement  was  reached,  and 
the  new  partner,  Alfred  Vail — who  had,  besides 
inherited  wealth,  technical  ability  of  a  high 

372 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

order — set  to  work  with  enthusiasm.  His 
father,  who  was  the  head  of  the  Speedwell  Iron 
Works  at  Morristown,  New  Jersey,  had  confi- 
dence enough  in  his  son's  venture  to  advance 
the  two  thousand  dollars  needed  for  making 
instruments  and  securing  patents. 

In  a  room  at  the  iron-works  Vail  struggled, 
unaided  except  by  a  fifteen-year-old  apprentice, 
with  the  task  of  constructing  a  copy  of  Morse 's 
model  and  incidentally  making  some  improve- 
ments of  his  own.  Morse,  too,  was  busy  con- 
triving and  planning.  Each  step  in  advance  led 
to  new  problems  to  be  solved.  Eealizing  the 
necessity  of  perfecting  his  code  by  having  the 
simplest  combinations  of  dots  and  dashes  to 
represent  the  most  frequently  used  letters,  he 
visited  a  printing-of&ce  and  noted  down  the 
amount  of  type  provided  for  the  various  mem- 
bers of  the  alphabet.  He  found  the  largest 
supply  of  e's  and  t's  and  the  smallest  number 
in  the  q  and  z  compartments.  This  examina- 
tion of  the  case  of  type  led  to  some  important 
changes  in  the  Morse  alphabet.* 

*  Some  zealous  friends  of  Alfred  Vail  have  claimed  for 
him  the  honor  of  this   development  of  the  telegraphic  code; 

373 


COl^QUESTS  OF  I^sTVEl^TIOIsr 

It  was  a  proud  day  when,  in  January,  1838,  at 
last  the  model  was  ready  for  its  trial.  Mr.  Vail 
was  sent  to  come  to  the  workroom  where  his 
son  was  seated  at  the  sending  key,  with  Morse 
at  the  receiver.  Smilingly  the  father  wrote  on 
a  slip  of  paper,  '^A  patient  waiter  is  no  loser,'' 
and  handed  it  to  his  son.  ^^If  you  can  get  that 
over  the  wire,  I  stand  convinced  that  you  have 
a  good  thing,''  he  remarked.  The  machine 
clicked  busily  for  a  few  moments,  the  record 
was  made,  and  Morse  read  off  the  message 
instantly. 

It  may  be  mentioned  here  that  the  recording 
device  is  not  used  to-day.  In  actual  practice  the 
operators  have  found  it  simpler  to  take  the  mes- 
sage directly  from  the  clicks  of  their  instru- 
ments. 

Morse  had  now  a  machine  that  would  work,  a 
machine  that  represented  years  of  patient  study 
and  experimentation.  He  had,  moreover,  re- 
ceived valuable  help  not  only  from  young  Vail 
but  also  from  Professor  Gale.    The  latter  was 

but  letters  from  Vail  to  the  Father  of  the  Telegraph  cited  in 
the  *'Life  and  Letters  of  Morse"  by  his  son,  make  clear 
reference  to  the  ' '  Morse  Code ' '  as  belonging  to  the  inventor  in 
fact  as  well  as  in  name. 

374 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

well  acquainted  with  Joseph  Henry's  telegraph, 
which  sent  signals  over  a  mile  of  wire  to  an 
electromagnet  that  marked  the  breaks  in  the 
current  by  striking  a  bell.  Through  the  help 
of  Gale  and  Henry,  Morse  developed  the  relay, 
which  makes  it  possible  to  send  messages  over 
great  distances  by  means  of  reinforcing  electro- 
magnets that  open  and  close  a  local  circuit  with 
suitable  batteries  at  points  where  the  current 
begins  to  weaken. 

But,  as  in  the  case  of  other  great  inventions, 
the  real  trial  came  in  getting  the  public  to 
understand  and  use  the  gift  that  was  theirs  for 
the  asking.  After  fruitless  demonstrations  in 
New  York  and  Philadelphia,  Morse  took  his  in- 
struments to  the  office  of  the  Committee  on 
Commerce  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  in 
the  Capitol  at  Washington.  There,  while  most 
people  looked  upon  it  indifferently  as  nothing 
more  than  a  curious  toy,  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  was  won  to  enthusiastic  champion- 
ship. But  even  with  this  start  a  weary  time 
passed  before  anything  was  done.  A  financial 
panic  crippled  the  Vails  and  a  political  cam- 
paign like  a  Juggernaut  rode  ruthlessly  over 

375 


CONQUESTS  OF  myE:N^TIOE' 

everything  that  could  pay  no  tribute  to  party 
interests.  At  last,  however,  a  favorable  report 
from  the  committee  was  acted  upon  and  the 
House  appropriated  thirty  thousand  dollars  for 
the  laying  of  a  telegraph  line  between  Baltimore 
and  Washington. 

This  was,  however,  at  the  very  close  of  the 
session,  and  there  seemed  little  hope  of  the  bill 
passing  the  Senate.  On  the  evening  before  ad- 
journment Morse  sat  in  the  gallery,  hoping 
against  hope. 

^* There  is  no  use  waiting  now,"  a  friendly 
senator  advised.  *^You  can't  really  hope  for  a 
vote  at  this  late  hour.  Besides,  the  Senate  is 
not  in  favor  of  your  scheme.  You  may  just  as 
well  give  up  and  go  home. ' ' 

Morse  went  to  his  room  and  after  paying  his 
bill  preparatory  to  leaving  next  day  found  that 
he  had  only  thirty-seven  cents  in  the  world. 
After  saying  a  prayer  for  strength  and  courage 
to  press  on  still,  in  spite  of  seeming  defeat,  he 
went  to  bed. 

On  the  stairs  the  next  morning  he  was  greeted 
by  the  cheery  voice  of  Miss  Ellsworth,  daugh- 

376 


SAMUEL  F.  B.  MORSE 

ter  of  the  Commissioner  of  Patents,  who  had 
been  a  real  friend  in  need. 

*^  Professor,  I  have  come  to  congratulate 
you, ' '  she  said. 

* '  Congratulate  me ! ' '  exclaimed  Morse.  ' '  On 
what?" 

^*0h,''  she  replied,  ^^am  I  the  happy  bearer 
of  good  tidings!  On  the  passage  of  your  bill 
by  the  Senate.  It  went  through  without  debate 
a  few  minutes  before  closing-time.''  ^ 

*^Well,  dear  lady,''  said  Morse,  *'for  this  good 
word  you  shall  send  the  first  message  over  the 
new  line. ' ' 

Work  now  went  forward  in  earnest.  At  first 
the  wire  was  laid  in  a  pipe  underground,  but 
after  spending  a  large  part  of  the  money  on  the 
construction  of  conduits  which  proved  a  failure, 
Morse  decided  to  carry  the  wires  overhead  on 
poles  like  those  used  to-day.  When  the  line 
was  complete.  Miss  Ellsworth  came  forward 
with  her  message,  ^'What  hath  God  wrought?" 
It  was  received  in  Baltimore  and  flashed  back, 
giving  immediate  proof  of  the  success  of  the 
telegraph. 

There  were,  of  course,  other  battles  to  be 
377 


COISrQIJESTS  OF  i:N'YE:N'TIO]Sr 

fought ;  but  the  tide  had  turned  and  the  Father 
of  the  Telegraph  knew  that  the  future  of  his 
invention  was  assured.  He  went  on,  with  the 
spirit  and  the  patriotic  zeal  he  had  once  put 
into  his  work  as  a  painter.  When,  near  the 
close  of  his  life,  he  responded  to  the  cheers  of 
a  great  assembly  who  had  gathered  in  New 
York  to  do  him  honor  on  the  occasion  of  the 
unveiling  of  his  statue,  he  concluded  his  address 
with  these  words : 

*^  Forecasting  the  future  of  the  telegraph,  my 
most  powerful  stimulus  to  perseverance  through 
all  the  perils  and  trials  of  its  early  days — and 
they  were  neither  few  nor  insignificant — ^was 
the  thought  that  it  must  inevitably  be  world- 
wide in  its  application,  and,  moreover,  that  it 
would  everywhere  be  hailed  as  a  grateful 
American  gift  to  the  nations.  .  .  .  The  inven- 
tion is  one  ^ whose  lines  (from  America)  have 
gone  out  to  all  the  earth,  and  their  words  to  the 
end  of  the  world.'  '' 


378 


THE  STORY  OF  THE  TELEPHONE 

Alexander  Graham  Bell  (1847-         ) 

THE  story  of  Alexander  Graham  BelPs 
early  life  is  a  wonderful  tale  of  scientific 
adventure. 

His  father  and  his  grandfather  before  him 
had  been  specialists  in  elocution  and  the  laws  of 
speech.  They  had  written  important  texts  on 
the  subject,  and  one  in  particular,  ^* Visible 
Speech,''  reduced  the  mechanics  of  word- 
formation  to  a  science  that  had  practical  appli- 
cation in  the  teaching  of  foreign  languages  and 
the  correction  of  speech  defects. 

^  *  As  I  look  back  and  see  the  points  in  my  early 
life  that  led  to  my  work  on  the  telephone,''  said 
Dr.  Bell,  *^I  see  that  one  important  element  was 
my  love  of  music.  I  could  play  the  piano  by 
ear  before  I  could  read  or  write.  I  knew,  too, 
all  sorts  of  musical  instruments  in  a  sort  of 

379 


CO:tTQUESTS  OF  mVElSTTIOlSr 

way.  I  knew  how  they  were  made  and  the  way 
in  which  sounds  were  produced. 

*^A  second  element  of  even  greater  impor- 
tance was  that  I  came  of  a  family  that  had  made 
a  study  of  oral  speech  for  two  generations  be- 
fore me.  People  who  lisped  or  stammered  came 
to  my  father  to  be  taught  how  to  place  the  vocal 
organs  in  forming  sounds. '' 

Then  Dr.  Bell  went  on  to  relate  how  his  father 
encouraged  his  boys  to  make  a  hobby  of  voice 
work. 

**You  are  fond  of  making  things/'  he  said 
one  day.  ^^Do  you  think  you  could  make  a 
speaking-machine  1 ' ' 

It  was  a  fascinating  idea.  Graham  under- 
took to  model  the  mouth  from  a  skull,  making 
the  tongue  and  soft  parts  of  the  throat  of  rub- 
ber stuffed  with  raw  cotton;  while  his  brother 
Melville  worked  upon  the  lungs  and  vocal  cords. 
When  they  got  their  creature  into  shape,  how- 
ever, they  were  too  much  excited  to  complete 
the  bellows  that  was  to  do  duty  as  lungs.  As 
one  boy  blew  through  a  tube  and  the  other 
moved  the  lips   of  the  machine   out  came  a 

380 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

** sound  like  a  Pimch  and  Judy  show''  crying 
**Mama"  quite  distinctly. 

Of  course  the  boy  who  knew  music  and  so 
much  of  human  speech  longed  to  know  more 
about  the  marvels  of  sound.  When  sixteen 
years  old  he  started  out  with  enthusiasm  to 
teach  elocution  and  to  make  further  experi- 
ments with  the  laws  of  acoustics.  One  day, 
when  he  believed  he  had  arrived  at  some  im- 
portant discoveries,  he  went  to  consult  Alex- 
ander Ellis,  a  leading  scientist  who  was  trans- 
lating into  English  the  ^^ Sensations  of  Sound,'' 
by  Helmholtz.  **Very  interesting  tests,"  re- 
marked Ellis  sympathetically,  ^^but  the  German 
master  of  physics  has  already  given  these  facts 
to  the  world — and  more  completely. ' '  Then  he 
invited  Bell  to  his  house  and  showed  him  how 
Helmholtz  had  set  tuning-forks  vibrating  by 
means  of  electromagnets,  and  had  succeeded  in 
imitating  the  quality  of  the  human  voice  by 
blending  the  tones  of  a  number  of  tuning-forks. 

Now  the  young  man  who  had  succeeded  in 
making  a  talking-machine  leaped  in  fancy  to 
something  that  had  no  place  in  Helmholtz 's 
experiments. 

381 


CO:tTQUESTS  OF  mVENTION 

^'Why  not  make  a  musical  telegraplir'  he 
hazarded,  ^'a  telegraph  with  a  number  of  keys 
like  a  piano,  capable  of  sending  a  like  number 
of  different  tones  at  one  time  over  a  single 
wire.'*  He  recalled  that  when  he  sang  a  tone 
close  to  the  piano  strings,  the  string  tuned  to 
that  pitch  would  vibrate  in  answer.  He  jumped 
to  the  conclusion  that  tones  could  actually  be 
carried  over  wires  and  reproduced  by  means  of 
the  electromagnet.  He  had  the  thrill  of  a  Co- 
lumbus coming  in  sight  of  land.  How  was  he  to 
know  that  scores  of  other  inventors  had  caught 
a  glimpse  of  the  same  magic  shore  and  had 
sailed  all  round  it,  but  that  it  had  melted  before 
them  like  a  mirage?  This  idea  was  to  Bell, 
however,  a  kindly  will-o'-the-wisp  that  led  on 
to  the  search  for  the  telephone. 

The  young  man  pushed  forward  his  study  as 
if  he  were  determined  to  follow  the  advice  to 
*4earn  everything  about  something  and  some- 
thing about  everything''  in  a  day — or,  rather, 
overnight.  For  his  days  were  spent  in  teach- 
ing, and  hours  which  should  have  been  given  to 
sleep  were  seized  for  research.  The  day  of 
reckoning   came,  when   a   serious   breakdown 

382 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

seemed  certain.  His  father  was  thoroughly 
alarmed,  and  with  reason,  for  two  of  his  sons 
had  been  carried  off  suddenly  by  the  dread 
Wliite  Plague. 

*^ Another  climate  and  life  in  the  open,''  said 
the  doctor,  and  the  father  insisted  on  his  son 
giving  up  his  cherished  projects  to  seek  health 
on  a  farm  in  Canada.  But  while  planting  crops 
and  garnering  renewed  vigor  the  young  inven- 
tor of  twenty-six  found  time  to  work  out  with 
the  Mohawk  Indians  some  of  his  father's 
theories  of  speech. 

Then  word  came  of  the  chance  to  introduce 
this  system  of  lip-reading  at  the  school  for  the 
deaf  in  Boston;  and  young  Bell,  with  health 
fully  restored  now,  entered  upon  the  work  with 
all  the  zest  in  the  world.  So  great  was  his  suc- 
cess that  he  was  called  to  a  professorship  in 
Boston  University,  where  he  gave  instruction  in 
his  method  of  language-teaching  for  the  deaf. 

It  seemed  as  if  fair  fortune  were  trying  to 
lure  the  gifted  young  teacher  away  from  his 
interest  in  inventions.  He  opened  a  School  of 
Vocal  Physiology  which  met  with  instant  suc- 
cess.  His  work  was  filling  a  great  need*.   Almost 

383 


COInTQUESTS  of  mVEE^TION 

he  was  persuaded  tliat  here  lay  his  true  life- 
work. 

Then  it  was  that  by  a  little  deaf  child  he  was 
led  back  into  the  paths  of  experiment.  Five- 
year-old  Georgie  Sanders  lived  in  Salem,  and 
there  the  teacher  was  persuaded  to  make  his 
home  for  a  time  with  his  pupil.  Association 
with  the  Sanders  family  revived  BelPs  passion 
for  science,  and  their  cellar  was  turned  over 
to  him  for  a  laboratory. 

That  cellar  workshop  was  for  three  years  a 
place  big  with  effort  and  promise.  There  coils 
of  wire,  magnets,  and  tuning-forks  lay  about  in 
a  strange  medley,  that  gave,  however,  the  first 
hint  of  the  day  when  speech  was  to  be  carried 
across  continents  by  means  of  the  electric  cur- 
rent. Bell  worked  feverishly  and  furtively 
while  the  world  slept.  That  time  was  his  own 
and  safe  from  interruption ;  for  now  that  he  felt 
himself  on  the  threshold  of  success  he  was  jeal- 
ously fearful  lest  some  one  would  steal  his  great 
idea  and  push  ahead  through  the  open  door. 

**  Often  in  the  middle  of  the  night, '^  said 
Thomas  Sanders,  the  father  of  the  little  deaf 
pupil,  '^Bell  would  wake  me  up,  his  black  eyes 

384 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

blazing  and  his  crisp;  curly  hair  fairly  bristling 
with  excitement.  Sending  me  to  the  cellar,  he 
would  plunge  out  to  the  bam  and  begin  to  signal 
along  his  experimental  wires.  If  I  noticed  any 
improvement  he  would  execute  a  war-dance  of 
delight  and  go  happily  to  bed.  If  things  proved 
disappointing,  however,  he  would  settle  down 
doggedly  at  his  work-bench  for  a  further  try- 
out.'' 

Another  pupil  of  Bell's  took  his  hand  and 
gently  helped  him  along  the  road  of  accom- 
plishment— and  beyond  to  the  Inn  of  Content. 
Fifteen-year-old  Mabel  Hubbard,  with  her  ap- 
pealing ways  and  understanding  smile,  com- 
pletely won  the  heart  of  the  young  professor 
who  taught  her  to  speak;  and  in  a  few  years 
they  were  married.  Her  father,  Gardiner  G. 
Hubbard,  became  a  stanch  ally  of  Bell  and  later 
of  the  telephone. 

**Do  you  know,"  said  Bell  to  Hubbard  one 
day,  his  dark  eyes  glowing  and  his  voice  vibrat- 
ing with  mysterious  emphasis,  ^^do  you  know 
that  if  I  sing  the  note  G  close  to  the  strings  of 
this  piano  that  the  G-string  will  answer  me  ? ' ' 

''Well,  what  of  that?"  asked  Hubbard,  won- 
385 


COI^QUESTS  OF  USTVEISTTION^ 

dering  not  so  mucli  at  the  words  as  at  the 
dramatic  emphasis. 

*^It  is  a  fact  of  tremendous  importance,*'  re- 
plied Bell.  ^^It  means  that  we  may  some  day 
have  a  musical  telegraph,  which  will  send  as 
many  messages  at  one  and  the  same  moment 
over  one  wire  as  there  are  notes  on  that 
piano.*' 

Hubbard  took  to  the  idea  with  ready  sym- 
pathy and  support ;  but  when  the  day  came  that 
Bell  confided  his  dream  of  sending  speech  over 
wires,  the  man  of  affairs  was  alarmed.  He  felt 
that  the  promising  inventor  was  in  danger  of 
turning  visionary. 

^* Stick  to  a  practical  possibility;  don't  go 
chasing  after  a  will-o  '-the-wisp  that  can  never  in 
any  event  be  more  than  a  scientific  curiosity, ' ' 
he  warned.  ^  ^  Go  on  with  the  musical  telegraph 
which  may  really  make  your  fortune." 

^'If  I  can  make  a  deaf-mute  talk  I  can  make 
iron  talk,"  responded  Bell. 

Now  he  began  to  take  up  a  new  and  a  grue- 
some kind  of  experiment  with  the  human  ear 
itself.  Taking  the  complete  organs  of  hearing 
from  a  dead  man's  head,  he  arranged  the  sec- 

386 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

tions  of  the  skull  so  that  a  straw  which  rested 
against  the  ear-drum  at  one  end  touched  a  piece 
of  moving  smoked  glass  at  the  other.  A  new 
sort  of  ^^ visible  speech'^  resulted,  for  when  he 
spoke  with  loud  distinctness  into  the  ear,  the  vi- 
brations of  the  drum  appeared  in  tiny,  waving 
lines  upon  the  glass. 

*^If  a  little  membrane  like  the  ear-drum  can 
vibrate  a  bone,''  said  Bell,  *^then  an  iron  disk 
may  be  made  to  vibrate  an  iron  rod, — or,  at  least 
an  iron  wire. ' '  In  that  moment  the  idea  of  the 
telephone  flashed  in  vision  before  the  imagina- 
tion of  the  inventor.  He  distinctly  saw  two  iron 
disks  (like  ear-drums),  miles  apart,  but  brought 
into  contact  by  means  of  an  electric  wire  which 
could  catch  the  vibrations  of  sound  from  the 
disk  at  one  end  and  instantaneously  reproduce 
them  at  the  other. 

There  remained  now  the  task  of  turning  his 
idea  into  practical  reality, — a  task  made  doubly 
difficult  because  the  friends  who  were  giving  him 
financial  aid  still  insisted  on  his  devoting  him- 
self to  the  musical-telegraph  idea.  Encourage- 
ment came,  however,  when  a  visit  to  his  patent 
lawyer  at  Washington  gave  an  opportunity  to 

387 


CONQUESTS  OF  mVENTIOJ^ 

consult  the  emment  scientist  Joseph  Henry, 
who,  it  will  be  remembered,  had  given  Morse 
valuable  assistance  with  his  telegraph.  It 
seemed  as  if  the  wisdom  of  the  past  were  meet- 
ing the  daring  enterprise  of  a  new  age  when 
America's  Prophet  of  Science — seventy-eight 
years  old  now — sat  shoulder  to  shoulder  with 
the  young  inventor  of  twenty-eight,  as  he  ex- 
amined and  tested  his  apparatus. 

At  length  the  verdict  came.  ^ '  You  are  in  pos- 
session of  the  germ  of  a  great  invention,''  said 
Henry,  ^^and  I  would  advise  you  to  work  at  it 
until  you  have  made  it  complete." 

*^ But,''  interposed  Bell,  despairingly,  ^^I  have 
not  the  necessary  experience  with  electricity." 

^*Get  it,"  was  the  reply  that  seemed  to  in- 
fuse courage  and  determination  into  the  inven- 
tor as  by  an  electric  current. 

For  three  months  Bell  pressed  on  with  his 
tests,  until  one  day  his  assistant  heard  dis- 
tinctly the  twang  of  a  watch-spring  over  the 
wire.  That  sound  was  to  Bell  as  the  blare  of 
a  victorious  trumpet.  Now  he  succeeded  in 
convincing  Sanders  and  Hubbard.    As  for  the 

388 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

assistant,  Watson,  he  had  in  him  already  a  de- 
voted ally. 

**If  Morse,  who  was  a  painter,  could  muster 
enough  knowledge  of  electricity  at  the  age  of 
forty  to  carry  forward  his  idea  of  the  telegraph, 
our  case  is  by  no  means  hopeless,''  Bell  said  to 
Watson. 

Many  months  passed  with  trial  after  trial, 
during  which  the  infant  machine  refused  to  do 
little  more  than  make  distressing  indistinct 
noises.  Then  one  great  day — it  was  March  10, 
1876, — the  assistant  heard  quite  clearly  over 
the  wire  the  words,  * '  Mr.  Watson,  come  here,  I 
want  you. ' '  Never  was  summons  responded  to 
with  more  headlong  speed  as  Watson  rushed 
from  the  room  with  the  news  of  victory.  * *I  can 
hear  you ! ' '  he  shouted  at  the  door.  ^ '  I  can  hear 
the  words ! ' ' 

The  days  that  followed  were  passed  in  coax- 
ing the  infant  wonder  to  speak  with  greater  dis- 
tinctness. ^^  During  the  summer  of  1876,"  said 
Watson,  ^'the  telephone  was  talking  so  well  that 
one  didn't  have  to  ask  the  other  man  to  say  it 
over  again  more  than  three  or  four  times  before 

389 


COI^QUESTS  OF  i:N^VEE^TIO]Sr 

one  could  understand  quite  well,  if  the  sentences 
were  simple." 

This  was  the  year  of  the  Centennial  Exposi- 
tion in  Philadelphia,  and  Gardiner  Hubbard, 
who  was  one  of  the  commissioners  in  charge  of 
the  exhibits,  arranged  a  place  for  the  telephone 
in  a  corner  of  the  Department  of  Education; 
and  obtained  a  promise  from  the  judges  to  visit 
the  obscure  niche  between  wall  and  stairway 
where  it  was  set  up. 

The  fateful  Sunday  afternoon  came  when  the 
great  men  in  their  rounds  passed  before  the 
little  table  where  Bell  waited,  tense  and  eager. 
All  were  weary  and  indifferent,  for  the  hour 
was  late  and  the  day  very  warm.  Here  was  an 
odd,  homespun  sort  of  contrivance.  One  of  the 
men  took  up  a  receiver  idly  and  laid  it  down 
without  even  putting  it  to  his  ear.  Yawning, 
they  agreed  that  their  hotels  promised  more 
interest  than  new  wonders. 

It  proved,  however,  that  Fortune  was  just 
pausing  long  enough  to  get  the  stage  properly 
set  for  BelPs  great  triumph.  At  that  moment 
of  seeming  defeat  in  walked  Dom  Pedro,  Em- 

390 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

peror  of  Brazil,  accompanied  by  the  Empress 
Theresa  and  their  suite. 

^*  Professor  Bell,  I  am  delighted  to  see  you 
again!''  said  the  emperor,  who  was  greatly 
interested  in  work  for  the  deaf,  and  had  once 
visited  Bell's  class  in  ^'Visible  Speech"  at  Bos- 
ton University. 

Everybody  was  wide  awake  now,  as  Dom 
Pedro  put  the  receiver  to  his  ear,  while  Bell 
went  to  the  transmitter  at  the  end  of  the  room. 
Then  the  royal  visitor  lifted  his  head  and  looked 
about  him  dramatically.  ^ '  My  God ! — it  talks ! ' ' 
he  cried  in  amazement. 

Now  Joseph  Henry  took  the  receiver.  ^'I 
shall  never  forget,"  said  one  of  those  present, 
^^the  look  of  awe  that  passed  over  that  grand 
old  man's  face  as  he  heard  the  iron  disk  speak 
with  the  accents  of  the  human  voice. ' ' 

Next  came  Sir  William  Thomson,  later  known 
as  Lord  Kelvin,  the  great  electrical  scientist  and 
engineer  of  the  first  Atlantic  cable.  ^'It  does 
speak,"  he  said.  ^'It  is  the  most  wonderful 
thing  I  have  seen  in  America."  And  that  was 
the  verdict  of  the  judges, — that  of  all  the  gifts 
to  the  Nation  on  the  one-hundredth  anniversary 

391 


COE^QUESTS  OF  I^^VENTIOJST 

of  the  ringing  of  the  Liberty  Bell  the  telephone 
was  the  first  in  importance. 

Notwithstanding  its  brilliant  introduction  to 
America,  the  baby  wonder  shared  the  fate  of 
other  great  inventions  and  had  to  fight  hard  for 
a  foothold  in  the  business  world.  But  the  men 
in  control  had  the  vision  and  the  courage  of 
pioneers,  reinforced  by  sound  organizing  abil- 
ity ;  and  so  in  spite  of  the  indifference  and  ridi- 
cule of  the  ignorant,  and  the  bitter  enmity  of 
the  powerful  telegraph  interests,  who  looked 
upon  it  as  a  trespasser  upon  Western  Union 
territory,  the  telephone  won  its  way. 

Did  the  great  scientists  who  gathered  about 
Bell  at  the  Centennial  and  marveled  that  the 
electric  waves  could  be  made  to  carry  and  re- 
produce faithfully  the  complex  sound-waves  of 
the  human  voice,  dream  of  how  the  telephone 
might  one  day  figure  in  the  affairs  of  men!  Per- 
haps that  is  to  ask  the  question,  ''Is  the  oak- 
tree  more  marvelous  than  the  acorn  from  which 
it  sprang  f 

Let  us  think  for  a  moment  of  some  of  the 
marvels  that  hide  behind  the  word  ' '  telephone ' ' 
in  the  world  to-day.     Think  of  a  great  switch- 

392 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

board  with  its  maze  of  wires  that  are  woven  in 
and  out,  in  and  out,  to  the  tune  of  the  flashing 
light-signals,  connecting  any  number  of  a  vast 
city  system  with  any  other  in  a  moment.  Think 
of  the  underground  lead-encased  cables  that 
pass  under  the  streets  of  our  cities, — great 
ropes  of  massed  wires  over  which  hundreds  of 
messages  pass  magically  side  by  side,  and  in 
and  out,  as  the  strands  ravel  off  at  their  various 
destinations.  Now  there  are  underground  cables 
connecting  Washington,  New  York,  and  Boston. 
That  came  about  in  a  dramatic  fashion.  The 
storm  that  swept  over  the  country  at  the  time  of 
the  inauguration  of  President  Taft  carried 
down  so  many  wires  that  communication  be- 
tween Washington  and  the  rest  of  the  country 
was  cut  off  for  several  days. 

^'That  must  never  happen  again,"  said  the 
Bell  engineers.  ^^We  must  see  to  it  that  our 
capital  is  never  out  of  touch  with  the  rest  of  the 
country. ' ' 

Picture  the  wires  of  our  country, — the  nerves 
of  the  Nation.  The  big  underground  cables  are 
like  the  spinal  cord  from  which  intelligence  goes 
out  in  all  directions  to  every  body  cell.    So  the 

393 


ALEXANDER  GRAHAM  BELL 

wires  go  over  rivers,  mountains,  and  deserts, 
and  under  the  sea.  At  points  where  wires  stop 
the  messages  can  leap  through  the  air  from 
shore  to  island  shore,  or  to  ships  at  sea,  by  wire- 
less. 

Is  there  in  all  the  realm  of  Wonder-Lore  a 
more  marvelous  story  than  that  of  the  tele- 
phone ? 


395 


WIRELESS 

GuGLiELMo  Makconi  (1874-         ) 

EACH  of  us  in  the  world  to-day  is  indeed  the 
heir  of  all  the  ages,  but  few  know  how  to 
use  to  advantage  the  marvelous  inheritance 
from  the  past.  To  each  the  days  of  opportunity 
come — 

And  marching  single  in  an  endless  file, 
Bring  diadems  and  fagots  in  their  hands; 

To  each  they  offer  gifts  after  his  will, 

Bread,  kingdoms,  stars,  and  sky  that  holds 
them  all. 

But  like  careless  children,  intent  on  the  toys 
of  the  moment,  we  give  small  heed  to  the  real 
gifts  of  the  hours. 

This  is,  however,  the  story  of  a  boy  who  was 
alive  to  the  meaning  of  his  heritage.  Guglielmo 
Marconi  was  born  in  1874  in  Villa  Griff  one  near 
Pologna,  Italy.  From  his  Irish  mother  and  Ital- 
ian father  he  inherited,  it  seemed,  the  strength 

396 


GUGLIELMO  MARCONI 

of  two  lands  and  two  races.  His  blue  eyes  looked 
out  seriously  on  his  world  of  wealth  and  the 
privileges  of  noble  birth.  Power  meant  to  him 
opportunity  to  do  something  that  would  really 
count  in  the  world. 

He  went  to  school  a  while  in  Bologna,  for 
another  while  in  that  fair  city  of  art  and  poetry, 
Florence.  But  it  was  not  the  pictures  nor  the 
stories  of  the  past  that  charmed  the  fancy  of 
this  Italian  boy.  The  wonder-story  of  the  real 
things  everywhere  about  him — the  story  without 
beginning  or  end — had  opened  his  eyes  and  set 
him  thinking. 

He  was  such  a  quiet,  shy  lad  that  his  peo- 
ple thought  a  taste  of  the  life  of  the  English 
schools  might  call  him  out  of  himself.  So  for  a 
time  he  went  to  Bedford  and  later  he  had 
some  experience  of  what  it  means  to  be  a  Rugby 
boy.  But  neither  cricket  nor  football  could 
lure  him  away  from  the  play  of  wonder  in  sci- 
ence. His  holidays  were  always  spent  in  try- 
ing out,  through  experiments  of  his  own,  the 
fascinating  problems  of  physics.  Electricity 
had  been  his  particular  hobby  from  the  time 
he  was  eleven  or  twelve  years  old. 

397 


COISTQUESTS  OF  IISTVEISTTIOlSr 

It  was  when  lie  was  a  student  at  the  Univer- 
sity of  Bologna  that  he  came  face  to  face  with 
his  problem,  and  knew  that  he  would  never  give 
up  until  he  had  found  a  solution.  His  work  un- 
der Professor  Eighi  gave  him  the  key  to  his 
door  of  opportunity;  for  Professor  Eighi  was  an 
enthusiastic  disciple  of  the  great  German  scien- 
tists Helmholtz  and  Hertz  and  knew  all  about 
the  outposts  of  discovery  that  their  achieve- 
ments had  won. 

^'It  was  while  Professor  Hertz  was  demon- 
strating with  a  Ley  den  jar  and  two  flat  coils  of 
wire  at  the  Technical  High  School  in  Carlsruhe, 
just  as  I  am  working  before  you  now,"  impress- 
ively declared  Eighi,  one  day,  '^that  he  came 
upon  his  great  idea.  He  noticed  that  the  dis- 
charge of  electricity  from  the  jar  (a  very  small 
one,  you  will  note)  through  one  of  the  coils 
would  induce  a  current  in  the  other  coil  if  there 
was  a  gap  in  the  inducing  coil.  For  the  spark 
caused  when  the  current  jumped  the  gap  set  up 
electrical  vibrations  that  gave  rise  to  powerful 
currents  in  the  neighboring  wire.  He  soon  de- 
termined that  these  currents  v/ere  noticeable, 
even  though  the  coils  were  separated  by  a  con- 

398 


GUGLIELMO  MAKCONI 

siderable  distance.  It  was  clear  to  him  then 
that  one  might  send  out  electrical  waves  through 
space  without  wires/' 

Young  Marconi  listened  breathlessly.  From 
the  time  he  was  sixteen  he  had  been  fascinated 
by  the  thought  that  it  might  be  possible  to  send 
wireless  signals.  He  had  read  everything  he 
could  find  relating  to  the  matter.  He  knew 
Morse  had  proved,  in  1842,  that  the  electric 
current  could  be  sent  through  water  without 
wires,  and  that  others  had  proved  the  possibility 
of  using  the  earth  as  a  conductor.  Joseph 
Henry  had  clearly  demonstrated  that  the  elec- 
tricity sent  out  from  a  Leyden  jar  is  wave-like, 
moving  through  the  earth  or  water  as  ripples 
spread  out  over  a  pond  following  the  fall  of  a 
pebble,  Marconi  knew,  too,  that  people  working 
with  a  telephone  receiver  near  a  telegraph  wire 
had  distinctly  heard  music  from  a  neighboring 
wire  that  was  being  used  to  test  Edison's  musi- 
cal telephone.  The  sounds  had  leaped  in  some 
way  across  the  air  gap  to  the  telephone  on  the 
other  line.  And  he  knew  that  Edison,  in  1885, 
had  made  use  of  these  induced  currents  to  signal 

399 


COIsTQUESTS  OF  i:N^VEITTIO]vr 

to  a  moving  train  from  a  wire  near  tlie  rail- 
way. 

What,  now,  was  it  that  Hertz  had  found? 
Eagerly  Marconi  hnng  on  the  words  of  his  pro- 
fessor, who  seemed  to  be  speaking  to  him  alone. 

^^So  it  was,'^  Eighi  went  on,  ^Hhat  Hertz 
made  almost  by  accident  the  great  discovery 
that  the  vibrations  or  waves  of  light  and  of 
electro-magnetism  are  alike  in  that  they  go  with 
the  same  speed  through  the  all-pervading  ether; 
their  difference  lies  in  the  wave-length.  These 
electric  waves  (now  properly  called  Hertzian 
waves)  are  reflected  from  conducting  surfaces 
as  light  is  from  polished  surfaces.  Pray  note,'' 
Professor  Eighi  added,  ^'that  I  say  Hertz  came 
to  his  discovery  almost  by  accident;  for  the 
chance  could  only  have  come  to  one  who  had 
eyes  to  see  and  understanding  to  grasp  the 
meaning  of  what  he  saw.  In  short,  Hertz  is  the 
most  able  experimenter  in  physics  that  the 
world  knows.  In  eighteen-eighty-six  he  fol- 
lowed his  first  achievement  by  one  even  more  re- 
markable. Across  a  gap  in  a  coil  of  wire  (hav- 
ing no  electric  contact  with  a  battery)  he  made 
tiny  sparks  leap  out  at  the  moment  of  the  ap- 

400 


GUGLiELMO  MARCONI 

pearance  on  another  coil  with  a  longer  gap  of 
the  spark  made  by  the  electrical  discharge  from 
a  Ley  den  jar/' 

**Now,''  thought  young  Marconi,  ^*it  must  be 
plain  to  everybody  that  a  power  has  been  found 
that  will  send  messages  through  space  with  the 
speed  of  light.  Perhaps  one  of  the  great  men 
like  Hertz  will  to-morrow  come  forward  with 
a  way  to  telegraph  without  wires,  but  in  the 
meantime  I  '11  see  what  I  can  work  out. "  So  he 
set  up  poles  at  different  points  on  his  father's 
estate  to  hold  sending-  and  receiving-instru- 
ments. By  means  of  a  Morse  telegraph-key  in 
circuit  with  a  spark-gap  he  flashed  dots  and 
dashes  (short  or  long  sparks)  by  varying  the 
length  of  the  strokes.  He  knew,  however,  that 
he  had  but  made  a  beginning  with  these  short- 
distance  messages.  Others  had  accomplished 
as  much.  Would  he  be  able  to  go  beyond  scien- 
tific experiment  and  follow  up  discovery  with  a 
practical  invention? 

When  Marconi  was  twenty-one  he  had  suc- 
ceeded in  sending  signals  over  a  distance  of  a 
mile.  Noticing  one  day  that  an  instrument  on 
the  opposite  side  of  a  hill  was  affected,  he  knew 

401 


CONQUESTS  OF  INVENTION 

that  the  waves  had  penetrated  the  solid  rock. 
'* Surely,  then/'  he  said  to  himself,  ** there  is  no 
limit  to  the  distance  over  which  wireless  mes- 
sages may  be  sent.  But  in  order  to  make  the 
waves  work  over  greater  distances  I  must  have 
a  more  sensitive  receiver."  Many  painstaking 
experiments  followed  to  produce  the  best 
coherer  or  instrument  for  detecting  the  faintest 
electrical  currents.  Then  at  last  a  satisfactory 
receiver  was  made  with  a  sensitive  coherer  to 
catch  the  electric  waves,  and  a  decoherer  to 
produce  the  sounds  corresponding  to  dots  and 
dashes  with  the  making  and  breaking  of  the  cur- 
rent. The  receiver  had,  moreover,  to  be  so 
tuned  or  harmonized  with  the  sending-instru- 
ment  as  to  register  the  electric  waves  from  that 
particular  transmitter. 

In  1896  Marconi  decided  that  the  time  had 
come  to  make  his  invention  known  to  the  world. 
He  applied  for  a  patent  in  England,  at  the  same 
time  submitting  his  plans  to  the  postal-tele- 
graph authorities.  From  the  London  post-office 
he  signaled  to  a  station  on  the  roof  a  hundred 
yards  away.  The  next  year  he  set  up  a  mast  a 
hundred  and  twenty  feet  high  on  the  Isle  of 

402 


GUGLIELMO  MAKCONI 

Wight  from  which  he  sent  experimental  signals 
to  a  steamer  with  a  sixty-foot  mast  for  the  re- 
ceiving-instrument. He  had  discovered  that  the 
height  of  stations  increased  their  range.  It  oc- 
cnrred  to  him  that  greater  height  might  be  se- 
cured through  the  use  of  kites  or  balloons,  but 
he  soon  decided  that  these  would  not  prove 
practicable  under  all  conditions  and  in  all 
weathers. 

^*  As  the  length  of  a  receiving-pole  is  limited," 
he  then  said,  ^  ^  I  must  increase  the  range  by  in- 
creasing the  electrical  power  at  the  s ending- 
station." 

Now  we  hear  at  long-distance  stations  a  crack 
as  of  thunder  when  the  electric  current  bridges 
the  spark-gap  of  the  transmitter  and  the  flame 
that  accompanies  the  crack  is  as  large  as  a 
man's  wrist. 

On  November  25,  1901,  Marconi  left  England 
for  Newfoundland.  To  the  questions  of  report- 
ers who  clamored  for  a  marvel  that  would  be 
good  for  a  column  at  least,  he  said  he  hoped  to 
show  that  the  time  had  come  when  one  might 
send  signals  to  boats  three  hundred  miles  away. 
He  felt  sure,  however,  that  he  had  everything 

403 


CONQUESTS  OF  mVEl!^TION 

in  readiness  for  sending  the  wonder-waves 
across  tlie  ocean  from  England  to  America.  But 
he  was  determined  to  wait  for  the  accomplished 
fact  to  announce  itseK  without  heralding. 

At  Poldhu,  on  the  coast  of  Cornwall,  Eng- 
land, a  station  was  established  with  a  group  of 
twenty  tall  poles  strung  with  wires  from  pole  to 
pole.  Huge  power-driven  dynamos  furnished 
the  electric  current  and  converters  replaced  the 
induction-coils  of  the  early  experiments.  At 
Cape  Cod,  Massachusetts,  another  station  with 
powerful  machinery  for  generating  electricity 
had  also  been  built.  Storms  had  done  great 
damage  to  the  masts  at  both  points ;  but  Mar- 
coni, unwilling  to  wait  for  them  to  be  fully 
restored,  determined  on  a  trial  from  Signal  Hill 
near  St.  Johns,  Newfoundland,  which  was  some 
six  hundred  miles  nearer  Poldhu  than  the  Cape 
Cod  station. 

Thursday,  December  12,  1901,  was  the  great 
day  when  the  first  wireless  message  crossed  the 
ocean.  **At  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  on 
December  ninth,  begin  sending  me  a  simple  sig- 
nal. Let  it  be  the  three  dots  of  the  S.  Keep 
sending  it  at  intervals  until  six  o 'clock,''  had 

404 


GUGLIELMO  MARCONI 

been  the  directions  given  to  tlie  home  station. 

Between  those  hours  (11 :30  a.  m.  to  2 :30  p.  m. 
by  Newfoundland  time)  Marconi  was  at  his  post 
on  Signal  Hill,  waiting.  The  wire,  carried  aloft 
by  a  great  kite  (for  the  building  of  a  special 
aerial  for  the  test  was  of  course  too  costly) 
passed  through  the  window  of  one  of  the  govern- 
ment buildings,  to  where  Marconi  sat  with  a 
telephone  receiver  held  to  his  ear.  At  last  (it 
was  a  half-hour  after  noon  on  December  12th, 
that  being  four  o'clock  in  England)  he  heard 
very  faintly  three  short  ticks.  Listening 
breathlessly  until  there  came  again  the  three 
magic  strokes,  he  called  to  his  assistant  to  learn 
if  his  ears,  too,  could  catch  the  sound  brought  by 
the  ether  waves,  two  thousand  miles  across  the 
Atlantic.  Again  and  again  now  came  the  three 
clicks — faint  still,  but  fraught  with  wonderful 
promise.  Man  had  learned  to  use  the  wings  of 
light  and  lightning,  spanning  time  and  space 
with  his  thought. 

Of  course  there  was  no  powerful  sending-ap- 
paratus  in  Newfoundland  to  flash  back  to  Corn- 
wall the  news  of  the  great  victory.  That  had  to 
be  sent  by  cable. 

405 


COI^TQUESTS  OF  I]S[yE:N^TIO]Sr 

Each  conquest  of  invention  is  a  triumplial 
arch  through  which  man  looks  to  an  untraveled 
world  of  new  achievement.  So  when  Marconi 
saw  his  signaling  without  wires  filling  a  great 
need  in  the  sending  of  messages  from  ship  to 
ship  or  ship  to  shore,  across  oceans  and  through 
the  uncharted  sea  of  the  sky,  he  turned  his 
thought  to  the  problem  of  the  wireless  tele- 
phone. But  here  America  took  up  the  work,  and 
while  Marconi  and  other  great  scientists  were 
struggling  wth  the  tremendous  difficulties  of  the 
task,  the  group  of  telephone  scientists  known 
as  the  Bell  Engineers,  under  the  leadership  of 
John  J.  Carty,  working  with  all  the  advantages 
of  perfect  team-work  of  trained  hands  and 
brains,  reinforced  by  ideal  equipment,  together 
won  the  goal.  On  September  29, 1915,  the  voice 
of  a  man  speaking  into  his  desk  telephone  in 
New  York  was  taken  up  by  the  sending  appara- 
tus of  the  navy  wireless  station  at  Arlington, 
Virginia,  and  flashed  on  the  wings  of  the  ether 
waves  through  space.  Some  of  these  waves 
were  caught  at  the  station  of  Mare  Island,  Cali- 
fornia, and  by  means  of  the  amplifier  which  is  to 
the  wireless  telephone  what  the  coherer  is  to 

406 


GUGLIELMO  MAECONI 

Marconi's  apparatus,  the  words  were  made  dis- 
tinctly audible  to  Mr.  Carty,  who  sat  with  the 
telephone  receiver  at  his  ear,  listening  to  his 
friend  in  New  York. 

**It  is  not,  however,"  explained  Mr.  Carty, 
in  an  address  before  the  Franklin  Institute  of 
Philadelphia,  in  May,  1916,  *Hhe  function  of  the 
wireless  telephone  to  do  away  with  the  use  of 
wires,  but  rather  to  be  employed  in  situations 
where  wires  are  not  available,  as  between  ship 
and  ship  and  across  large  bodies  of  water.  The 
ether  is  a  universal  conductor  for  wireless  tele- 
phone and  telegraph  impulses  and  must  be  used 
in  common  by  all  who  wish  to  employ  those 
agencies  of  communication.  In  the  case  of  the 
wireless  telegraph  the  number  of  messages 
which  may  be  sent  simultaneously  is  much  re- 
stricted. In  the  case  of  the  wireless  telephone, 
owing  to  the  thousands  of  separate  wave-lengths 
required  for  the  transmission  of  speech,  the 
number  of  telephone  conversations  which  may 
be  carried  on  at  the  same  time  is  still  further 
restricted,  and  is  so  small  that  all  who  can  em- 
ploy wires  will  find  it  necessary  to  do  so,  leav- 
ing the  ether  available  for  those  who  have  no 

407 


CONQUESTS  OF  iisrvEKTio:Nr 

other  means  of  commimicatioii.  This  quality 
of  the  ether  which  thus  restricts  its  use  is  really 
a  characteristic  of  the  greatest  value  to  man- 
kind, for  it  forms  a  universal  party  line,  so  to 
speak,  connecting  together  all  creation,  so  that 
anybody,  anywhere,  who  connects  with  it  in  the 
proper  manner,  may  be  heard  by  every  one  else 
so  connected.  Thus,  a  sinking  ship  or  a  human 
being  anywhere  can  send  forth  a  cry  for  help 
which  may  be  heard  and  answered.'' 


408 


INDEX 


Adams,  John  Quincy,  361 
Air  Brake,  284-289 
illustration,   287 
Allston,  Washington,  353,  355 
Andre,  Major,  223 
Arkwright,  Eiehard,  33,  49-53 
Automobile,  310-324 


B 


**  Barber  Who  Became  a 
Knight,''  49-53 

Barlow,  Joel,  233,  234,  239 

Bell,  Alexander  Graham,  379- 
395,  328 

Bessemer,  Henry,  303,  305 

Bessemer  Process,  295,  296 

"Black  diamonds,"  136 

Blast  Furnace,  293,  294 

Bleriot,  Louis,  341 

Block  System  (of  safety  sig- 
nals), 289 

Bonaparte,  Napoleon,  231, 
234,  237 

Boulton,  Matthew,  143,  146, 
153,  157,  209,  212 

Boulton  and  Watt  Engines, 
249 

"Burning  of  Moscow,"  233 

"By-Products, "  80-82 


C 


Canals,  208,  229,  231 
Caoutchouc,  107 
Carding,  32,  39-40 
Carnegie,    Andrew,    (quoted), 

144,  192,  198,  220 
Carron  Iron  Works,  205 
Cartwright,     Edmund,     54-63 

230 
Carty,  John  J.,  406-408 
Casson,  Herbert  N.   (quoted), 

302 
"Centennial  Exposition,"  390, 

392 
Charcoal,  206 
"Charlotte  Dundas,"  219 
Chicago,  24-25 
"Child  Lai 
Civil  War, 

and  cotton,  36 
Westinghouse,  279 
Civilization,    development    of, 

3-6,  137-138 
effect      of      transportation, 

189-190 
effect     of     artificial     light, 

137-138 
Clay,  Henry,  358 
"Clermont,"  238,  239-241 
Clinton,  DeWitt,  358 
Coal,  136,  206 
"Combing,"  39-40 


409 


INDEX 


' '  Conquest  of  the  Reaper, ' '  8- 

26 
Conquests  of  Invention,  3-7 
Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  362 
Cotton, 

carding,  32,  39-40 
by-products  of,  80-82 
''Cotton  is  king,''  29-37 
loom, 

hand,  31-32 
power,  34,  57,  58,  60 
fly-shuttle,  33,  43-44 
spinning,  32 

spinning- jenny,     32,     38-48, 
50,  52 
Cotton  Gin,  63-79 
' '  Cotton  as  a  World  Power, ' ' 

81-82 
Crabhe,  George,    (quoted),  62 
Cradle,  8,   15,  16 
Crompton,  Samuel,  34 
Curfew,  137 

D 

Davy,  Sir  Humphrey,   154 
' '  Day  of  Eubber, ' '  107-109 
Detroit,  iron  works,  314-316 
Duryea,  Charles  E.,  321 
Dyer  and  Martin,  Life  of  Edi- 
son, (quoted),  178,  185 

E 
Edison,    Thomas    Alva,     158- 
185,  399 
(quoted),  217,  322 
Electricity,  definition  of,  167 
Ellsworth,  Miss,  376 
Erie  Canal,  229 


*' Finder     of    Buried     Treas- 
ure," 139-157 
Fire,  135,  137 
Fisher,  George,  94,  96,  97 


Fitch,  John,  219 
Fly-shuttle,  33,  43-44 
Ford,  Henry,  310-324 
Fort  Myer,  341 
''Franklin  of  the  Nineteenth 

Century,"  158-185 
Franklin,   Benjamin,   225-227, 

350 
Frog,  steel  reversible,  283 
Fulton,  Robert,  61,  212,  219- 

221,  222-241,  206 


Gale,   Professor,    372,   375 
Gas  Lighting,  140,  150-156 
Gin,  cotton,  63-79 
Glasgow  University,  197 
Goodyear, 

Amasa,  111,  112 

Charles,  106,  110-131 

Stephen,  113 

WilHam,  131 
Greene,  Mrs.  Nathanael,  69-75 
Guilds, 

Guild  of  Hammermen,  197, 
203 

Guilds  of  Middle  Ages,  295 


Hargreaves,  James,  33    38-48, 

49,    242 
Helicopter,  331 
Henry,  Joseph,  365,  375,  388, 

391,  399 
' '  Hercules, ' '  statue  by  Morse, 

355 
Hertz,  Professor,  398-401 
Home    Industries,    8,    12,    38- 

42,  85 
Home,  Inventions  in  the,  83-86 
Howe,  Elias,  87-103,  217,  218, 

242 


410 


INDEX 


Hubbard,    Gardiner    G.,    385, 

390 
Hubbard,  Mabel,  385 


Industrial  Eevolution,  14,  15, 

29-31 
Inventions  in  the  home,  83-86 
Iron,  206 

K 

Kay,  John,  33,  43-45,  242 
Kelly,  William,  298-309 
Kelvin,  Lord,  391 
Kitty  Hawk,  335,  337 
'' Knight    Errant    of    Inven- 
tion,'' 110-131 


Lafayette,  358 

Langley,  Samuel  P.,  325-329, 

335 
Latent  heat,  201 
Light,  133-138 

are,  169 

bamboo  filament,  173 

gas,  140,  150-156 

incandescent,  169-173 
Liiienthal,  Otto,  332,  335,  337 
Livingston,    Eobert    R.,    234- 

235,  238 
Locomotive, 

first  model,   141,   146,   150, 
243-274 

illustration,  147 
Loom, 

hand,  31-32 

power,  34,  57,  58,  60 

M 

McCormiek, 

Cyrus,  8-26,  217,  218,  242 
Eobert,  8-14,  17 


McGowan,  Frank,  175 

Mackintosh,  107 

Marconi,  Guglielmo,   396-408 

Match,  135 

Miller,  Phineas,  76 

Monroe,  James,  358 

Morse, 

Elizabeth  Ann  Breese,  350 

Jedediah,  354 

Samuel  Finley  Breese,  350- 
378,  388,  399 
Morse  Code,  166,  349,  364,  373 
Moving  Pictures,  182-183 
''Mule,''  34 

Murdock,     William,     139-157, 
206,  211,  242,  254 

N 

Nail  making,  64-65 
Newcomen  Engine,  200,  205 


''Old  Field  School, "  16 
Open-Hearth  Method,  295 


''Paul  Pry,"  164 

Phenol,  making  of,  185 

Phonograph,  169,  182 

' '  Pioneers      of      Invention, ' ' 

215-221 
"Poet  of  Many  Inventions," 

54-63 
Postal  facilities  in  1789,  228 
Primitive  man,  4-6 
Prometheus,  135 

B 

Reaper,  18-23 

Eicalton,  J.  R.,   176-178 


411 


INDEX 


Eighi,  Professor,  398,  400 
''Rocket,''  267,  269,  271 
Eotary  Engine, 

Watt,  211 

Westingliouse,  277,  281 
Rubber,  107-109,  110-131 

vulcanization   of,   126,   129, 
131 
''Rue  des  Panarames,"  233 


S 


Scherer,  Dr.,    (quoted),  81-82 
Scott,   Sir   Walter,    (quoted), 

154 
Sewing  Machine,  87-103 

lock  stitch,  92,  93,  218 
Sickle,   9 
Signals,  345-349 

Indian,  347 
Singer,  Isaac  Morton,  100-101, 

218 
Smithsonian  Institution,  327, 

329 
Spinning,   32 
Spinning- jenny,  33,  38-48,  50, 

52 
Spring,  L.  W.,  (quoted),  306- 

307 
Starr,  J.  W.,  170 
Steam,  191-213 
Steam   Engine,    191-213,   218, 

293 
Steam  Hammer,  295,  308 
''Steel  Age,"  291-297 
Steel,  Bessemer,  207,  298-309 
Steel  Converter,  296,  306-307 
Stephenson, 

George,    190,    219,    243-274, 

311 
Robert,  252,  260 
Submarine  Detector,  184 
Submarine   Torpedo,   231-233, 

237 


Telegraph,  350-378 

musical,  382,  386 

principles  of,  367-378 

wireless,  396-408 
Telephone,  169,  379-395 

wireless,  406-408 
Thomson,  Sir  William,  391 
Tractor,  6,  26,  321,  322 
Transportation, 

Boulton  and  Watt  engines, 
249 

"Charlotte  Dundas,''  219 

"Clermont,''  220 

First  wheel,  189 

Locomotive,  219,  243-274 

"Rocket,"  267-269,  271 

Steam  engine,  218 

Steamboat,  61,  219-221,  206 
' '  Transportation     and    Prog- 
ress," 189-190 
Trevithick   Engine,    254,    255, 

256 
Tyndall,  Professor,  171 


Vail,  Alfred,  372-375 
"Vegetable  wool,"  70 
"Visible   Speech,"    379,    381 

383,  384,  385,  391 
Vote  recording  machine,  168 
Vulcanization  of  rubber,  126, 

129,  131 

W 

Washington's  Time,  136 
Waste,  elimination  of,   80-82, 

201-202 
"Water  frame,"  34,  51 
Watt,   James,    143,    144,    145, 

146,  149,  153,  156,  191- 

213,  218 


412 


INDEX 


Webster,  Daniel, 

speech  defending  Goodyear, 

118 
'* Weeping  wood,"  107 
West,     Benjamin,     224,     225, 

227,  228,  355-356 
Westinghouse,  George,  275-289 
''What  hath  God  wrought," 

376 
Whitney,  Eli,  34,  63-79,  242, 

310 
Wireless  Telegraphy,  396-408 
Wireless  Telephony,  406-408 


''Wizard    of    Menlo    Park," 

158 
Wright, 

Bishop  Milton,  331 

Orville,  330-343 

Wilbur,  330-343 


Yale,    student    life    in    1807, 

352-353 
"Yankee  who   crowned  King 

Cotton,"  63-79 


413 


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